Orchard: Exploring Multivariate Heterogeneous Networks on Mobile Phones. (18th July 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Eichmann, P.; Edge, D.; Evans, N.; Lee, B.; Brehmer, M.; White, C.
• Is Part Of: Computer graphics forum. Volume 39:Number 3(2020)
• Page Start: 115
• Page End: 126
• Publication Date: 2020-07-18
• Subjects: CCS Concepts -- Human‐centered computing → Information visualization -- Visualization systems and tools -- User interface design -- Information systems → Search interfaces; Computer graphics -- Periodicals; 006.605
• DOI: 10.1111/cgf.13967
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0167-7055

Abstract

Abstract: People are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their ability to navigate information spaces using search, hyperlinks, and visualization. But, mobile phones preclude the use of multiple coordinated views that have proven effective in the desktop environment (e.g., for business intelligence or visual analytics). In this work, we propose to model information as multivariate heterogeneous networks to enable greater analytic expression for a range of sensemaking tasks while suggesting a new, list‐based paradigm with gestural navigation of structured information spaces on mobile phones. We also present a mobile application, called Orchard, which combines ideas from both faceted search and interactive network exploration in a visual query language to allow users to collect facets of interest during exploratory navigation. Our study showed that users could collect and combine these facets with Orchard, specifying network queries and projections that would only have been possible previously using complex data tools or custom data science.