On the effects of viewing cues in comprehending distortions

  • Authors:
  • A. Zanella;M. S. T. Carpendale;M. Rounding

  • Affiliations:
  • University of Calgary, Calgary, AB.;University of Calgary, Calgary, AB.;University of Calgary, Calgary, AB.

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the second Nordic conference on Human-computer interaction
  • Year:
  • 2002

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Abstract

As a community, human-computer information and interface designers have tended to avoid use of fisheyes, and multi-scale presentations with their attendant distortion because of concern about how this distortion may lead to confusion and misinterpretation. On the other hand, for centuries, hand-created information presentations have made regular use of distortion to provide emphasis and actually enhance readability. Is the lack of use in computer presentations because thus far in our computational uses of distortion we have failed to provide adequate support that allows people to comprehend the manner in which the information is being presented? We describe a study about relative difficulty in reading distortions that investigates the effect of the use viewing cues such as the cartographic grid and shading on people's ability to interpret distortions. We look at two interpretation issues: whether people can locate the region of magnification and whether people can read the relative degree of magnification of these regions. We present the findings of this study and a discussion of its results.