Frame of Reference and Navigation Through Document Visualizations: Flying Through Information Space

Abstract

An experiment was conducted on navigation through three-dimensional visualizations of document databases. Subjects navigated through a 1000-document information space in which documents near each other were likely to be about a similar topic and keywords displayed in the space indicated the topic of nearby documents.

The influence of frame of reference and use of a map on document search and spatial judgment tasks was investigated. The frame of reference distinction compared a more egocentric (inside-out, immersed) perspective and a more exocentric (outside-in, bird's eye) perspective.

Performance was best with the exocentric display, with the egocentric display a close second. Use of a map hindered rather than supported performance. Results revealed tool/strategy choice as an important mediator of the influence of frame of reference, with non-optimal tool choices observed. Spatial ability correlated with performance. Results are accounted for in terms of mediating influences.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Beard

D. V.

Walker

J. Q.

(1990). Navigational techniques to improve the display of large two-dimensional spaces. Behaviour & Information Technology, 9(6), 451–466.

Billingsley

P. A.

(1982). Navigation through hierarchical menu structures: Does it help to have a map? In Proceedings of the 26th Annual Meeting of the Human Factors Society, (pp. 103–107). Santa Monica, CA: Human Factors Society.

Chalmers

(1993). Visualization of complex information. In Bass

L. J.

Gornastaev

Unger

, Third International Conference on Human Computer Interaction EWHCI '93, August 3–7, Moscow, Russia, Lecture Notes in Computer Science (Vol. 753, pp. 152–162). New York: Springer-Verlag.

Fairchild

K. M.

Poltrack

S. E.

Furnas

G. W.

(1988). SemNet: Three-dimensional graphic representations of large knowledge bases. In Guidon

, Cognitive Science and its Applications for Human-Computer Interaction (pp. 201–233). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Herot

C. F.

(1980). Spatial Management of data. ACM Transactions of Database Systems, 5(4), 493–513.

McCormick

E. P.

Wickens

C. D.

(1995). Virtual reality features of frame of reference and display dimensionality with stereopsis: Their effects on scientific visualization (Technical report No. ARL-95-6/PNL-95-1). Savoy, IL: University of Illinois, Institute of Aviation, Aviation Research Lab.

Newby

G. B.

(1992). An investigation of the role of navigation for information retrieval. In Shaw

, Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science (ASIS) 55th Annual Meeting, 29. October 26–29, Pittsburgh, PA: Medford, NJ.

Robertson

G. G.

Mackinlay

J. D.

Card

S. K.

(1991). Cone trees: Animated 3D visualizations of hierarchical information. In Proceedings of CHI '91 ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, (pp. 189–202). Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).

Watts

J. C.

(1994). A cognitive analysis of navigation in the computer medium (CSEL Report No. 1994–02). Cognitive Systems Engineering Laboratory, The Ohio State University, March 1994.

10.

Wickens

C. D.

Liang

C. C.

Prevett

T. T.

Olmos

(1994). Egocentric and exocentric maps for terminal area navigation. In Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 38th Annual Meeting, (pp. 16–20). Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, Santa Monica, CA.