Visual Information Seeking:
Tight Coupling of
Dynamic Query Filters
with Starfield Displays
C. Ahlberg & B. Shneiderman (1994)
David Sturtz | INFO 780 Information Visualization
Goal: Support Browsing
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Rapid filtering
Progressive refinement
Continuous reformulation of goals
Visual scanning
David Sturtz | INFO 780 Information Visualization
Principles of
Direct Manipulation
 Visual representation of the world in
action
 Rapid, incremental, and reversible
actions
 Selection by pointing
 Immediate and continuous display of
results
David Sturtz | INFO 780 Information Visualization
Visual Information Seeking
Interaction Methods
 Dynamic Query Filters
 Starfield Displays
 Tight Coupling
David Sturtz | INFO 780 Information Visualization
Dynamic Query Filters
 Sliders & buttons used to
reduce items in result set
 Dynamic HomeFinder
 Dynamic Periodic Table
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Dynamic HomeFinder
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Dynamic Periodic
Table of Elements
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Dynamic Query Filters
 Alphaslider for
selection of text
items
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Starfield Displays
 Useful when no natural mapping exists
 Scatterplot + Selection + Zooming
David Sturtz | INFO 780 Information Visualization
Tight Coupling
 Interface design principles
- Reveal the software state
- Constrains user from erroneous
or useless actions
- Comprehensible & consistent affordances
- Rapid, incremental, reversible interactions
- Continuous display
- Output-is-input
- Progressive refinement
- Details on demand
David Sturtz | INFO 780 Information Visualization
FilmFinder
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FilmFinder
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FilmFinder
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Spotfire
 Founded by Ahlberg
in 1996
 Provides “interactive,
visual data analytics
applications and
services”
David Sturtz | INFO 780 Information Visualization
Spotfire
David Sturtz | INFO 780 Information Visualization
Cited By
 Enhanced Dynamic Queries
via Movable Filters
Fishkin & Stone (1995)
 Starfield displays
 “Magic Lenses” allow:
- More complex queries
- Display of missing information
- Eventually, fuzzy matching
David Sturtz | INFO 780 Information Visualization
Magic Lenses
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Magic Lenses - AND
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Magic Lenses - OR
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Magic Lenses – Missing Data
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Cited By
 Visage: A User Interface Environment
for Exploring Information
Roth et al. (1996)
 Visage now being developed by Maya
design group
 Interface to SAGE graphics generator
 Development focused on military
logistics planning systems
David Sturtz | INFO 780 Information Visualization
Visage
David Sturtz | INFO 780 Information Visualization
Briefly Mentioned By
 Visualising Semantic Spaces and Author
Co-Citation Networks in Digital Libraries
C. Chen (1999)
- “Spatial metaphors are by far the most popular
design principle for information visualisation,”
 Information Retrieval on the Web
M. Kobayashi & K. Takeda (2000)
- Literature Review
David Sturtz | INFO 780 Information Visualization
Image Sources
http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/spotfire/
http://www.maya.com/visage/base/scenario.html
http://spotfire.com/products/decisionsite_posters.cfm
http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/courses/
is247/s02/lectures/fishkin-lenses-queries.ppt
 http://www.sapdesignguild.org/community/book_peop
le/visualization/controls/alphaslider.htm
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David Sturtz | INFO 780 Information Visualization