Tight Coupling of Dynamic Query Filters with Starfield

Displays / Spotfire.net Desktop

By Chris Ahlberg and Ben Shneiderman / Spotfire Inc.

IC280 5/9/02 Jeff Ridenour

Principles of Direct Manipulation for VIS

applications

•visual representation of the world of action including both objects and actions

•rapid, incremental and reversible actions

•selections by pointing (not typing)

•immediate continuous display of results

New VIS designs

•Dynamic Query Filters

•Starfield Display

•Tight Coupling

Dynamic Query Filters

•Query parameters are rapidly adjusted with sliders, buttons, etc.

•Each query component acts as a filter reducing the number of items in the result sets

•Effects were combined using simple AND logic

Starfield Display

•Scatterplot with additional features to support selection and zooming

•Result sets are continuously available and support viewing of hundreds or thousands of items

Tight Coupling

•Query components are interrelated in ways that preserve display invariants and support

progressive refinement.

•Specifically, outputs of queries can be easily used as input to produce other queries

Aspects of Tight Coupling

•Comprehensible and consistent affordances to guide users (highlights, handles, scrollbars, etc.)

•Rapid, incremental and reversible interactions among components

•Constraints on permissible operations to preserve display invariants and prevent errors

•Continuous display to always show the users some portion of the information space.

•Progressive refinement, in which users can alter the parameters to get other results.

•Allow users to select details on Demand

Spotfire.net Desktop

•Tool to Access, Analyze, and Publish

•Documentation emphasizes Web features and Online Services (business model?)

Visual Tip

•Tool for rapid asessment of potentially intersting visualizations

•Large number of 2D scatterplots ranked by correlation of attributes

Visualizations

•2D scatter plots

•3D scatterplots (Rotate, Zoom, Roll,etc.)

•Histograms

•Bar Charts

•Line charts

•Profile Charts (Parallel Coordinate Techniques

•Pie Charts

•Heat Maps (Similar to pixel bar charts)