An alternative paradigm for navigation

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Zoomable User Interfaces

• An alternative paradigm for navigation

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Agenda

• Questions
• Next week plans
• citations
• Zoomable User Interfaces (ZUIs)
• Historical figures/readings
• Motivations
• Toolkit support
• Applications of ZUIs

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A note on references

• When citing a paper, provide enough information
  for a reader to find the article.
• Author(s)
• Title of article
• Journal/Proceedings
• Pages, date
• URL

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Historical Background
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Todays Reading

• Ben Bederson Jim Hollan (1994) Pad A zooming
  graphical interface for exploring alternate
  interface physics. Proceedings of the 7th Annual
  ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and
  Technology (UIST 94), pp. 17-26.
  http//doi.acm.org/10.1145/192426.192435

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Other Contributors to ZUI

• Introduction of multiscale concept for UIs
• Ken Perlin and David Fox. Pad An alternative
  approach to the computer interface. Proceedings
  of the 20th Annual Conference on Computer
  Graphics and Interactive Techniques (SIGGRAPH
  93), pp. 57-64. DOI http//doi.acm.org/10.1145/1
  66117.166125
• George Furnas (Michigan)

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Motivations for Zooming
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MotivationLimitations of Metaphors

• Reliant upon experiential knowledge
• Temporary bridges
• Dont scale
• Harmful if they lead to supposition of
  non-existent behaviors

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Interface Physics vs. Metaphor

• Simple laws of an interface physics can overcome
  these limitations
• e.g., scaling
• Zooming as primitive
• Info viewed at varying scales

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MotivationInformation overload

• Some information spaces (e.g., the Web) are too
  complicated for us to visualize all at once

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Semantic Zooming

• Different representations of objects when viewed
  at different scales
• Examples
• Organizational chart for large company
• Site map for large Web portal
• A timeline for this course

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Tools to build ZUIs
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PAD

• Tck/Tk, C toolkit, available from UCSD
• http//www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/pad/
• http//www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/pad/tour/
• Implemented as extension to the Tcl/Tk scripting
  environment
• Semantic zooming via Tcl procedural objects
• Smooth zooming via animation between levels to
  help maintain context.

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U. Maryland tools

• Jazz
• Java toolkit (UIST 2000)
• http//www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/jazz/
• Piccolo
• Smaller, easier to use version of Jazz
• Available at Jazz Web site

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ZUI Applications
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Pad Web browser

• Depicts multiple pages with links in single view
• http//www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/jazz/learn/papers/bookc
  hap-98-webbrowser/index.html

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CounterPoint

• Presentation software
• http//www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/counterpoint/

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PhotoMesa

• Digital photography browser
• http//www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/photomesa/

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The Family Video Archive

• Annotation and browsing system for home movies
• http//swiki.cc.gatech.edu8080/ahome/97