Abstract—In common Web-based search interfaces, it can be difficult to formulate queries that simultaneously combine temporal, spatial, and topical data filters. We investigate how coordinated visualizations can enhance search and exploration of information on the World Wide Web by easing the formulation of these types of queries. Drawing from visual information seeking and exploratory search, we introduce VisGets – interactive query visualizations of Web-based information that operate with online information within a Web browser. VisGets provide the information seeker with visual overviews of Web resources and offer a way to visually filter the data. Our goal is to facilitate the construction of dynamic search queries that combine filters from more than one data dimension. We present a prototype information exploration system featuring three linked VisGets (temporal, spatial, and topical), and used it to visually explore news items from online RSS feeds. Index Terms—Information visualization, World Wide Web, information retrieval, exploratory search, visual information seeking. 1

The Web is ephemeral. Pages change frequently, and it is nearly impossible to find data or follow a link after the underlying page evolves. We present Zoetrope, a system that enables interaction with the historical Web (pages, links, and embedded data) that would otherwise be lost to time. Using a number of novel interactions, the temporal Web can be manipulated, queried, and analyzed from the context of familar pages. Zoetrope is based on a set of operators for manipulating content streams. We describe these primitives and the associated indexing strategies for handling temporal Web data. They form the basis of Zoetrope and enable our construction of new temporal interactions and visualizations. ACM Classification: H5.2 [Information interfaces and

We introduce grounded evaluation as a process that attempts to ensure that the evaluation of an information visualization tool is situated within the context of its intended use. We discuss the process and scope of grounded evaluation in general, and then describe how qualitative inquiry may be a beneficial approach as part of this process. We advocate for increased attention to the field of qualitative inquiry early in the information visualization development life cycle, as it tries to achieve a richer understanding by using a more holistic approach considering the interplay between factors that influence visualizations, their development, and their use. We present three case studies in which we successfully used observational techniques to inform our understanding of the visual analytics process in groups, medical diagnostic reasoning, and visualization use among computational linguists.

Do court cases differ from place to place? What kind of picture do we get by looking at a country’s collection of law cases? We introduce Parallel Tag Clouds: a new way to visualize differences amongst facets of very large metadata-rich text corpora. We have pointed Parallel Tag Clouds at a collection of over 600,000 US Circuit Court decisions spanning a period of 50 years and have discovered regional as well as linguistic differences between courts. The visualization technique combines graphical elements from parallel coordinates and traditional tag clouds to provide rich overviews of a document collection while acting as an entry point for exploration of individual texts. We augment basic parallel tag clouds with a details-in-context display and an option to visualize changes over a second facet of the data, such as time. We also address text mining challenges such as selecting the best words to visualize, and how to do so in reasonable time periods to maintain interactivity.

Figure 1. Our SmartPlayer is adopted by the metaphor of scenic car driving. In this paper we propose a new video interaction model called adaptive fast-forwarding to help people quickly browse videos with predefined semantic rules. This model is designed around the metaphor of “scenic car driving, ” in which the driver slows down near areas of interest and speeds through unexciting areas. Results from a preliminary user study of our video player suggest the following: (1) the player should adaptively adjust the current playback speed based on the complexity of the present scene and predefined semantic events; (2) the player should learn user preferences about predefined event types as well as a suitable playback speed; (3) the player should fast-forward the video continuously with a playback rate acceptable to the user to avoid missing any undefined events or areas of interest. Furthermore, our user study results suggest that for certain types of video, our SmartPlayer yields better user experiences in browsing and fast-forwarding videos than existing video players ’ interaction models. Author Keywords Video playback, adaptive fast-forward, predefined event

Data quality is critical for many information-intensive applications. One of the best opportunities to improve data quality is during entry. USHER provides a theoretical, data-driven foundation for improving data quality during entry. Based on prior data, USHER learns a probabilistic model of the dependencies between form questions and values. Using this information, USHER maximizes information gain. By asking the most unpredictable questions first, USHER is better able to predict answers for the remaining questions. In this paper, we use USHER’s predictive ability to design a number of intelligent user interface adaptations that improve data entry accuracy and efficiency. Based on an underlying cognitive model of data entry, we apply these modifications before, during and after committing an answer. We evaluated these mechanisms with professional data entry clerks working with real patient data from six clinics in rural Uganda. The results show that our adaptations has the potential to reduce error (by up to 78%), with limited effect on entry time (varying between-14 % and +6%). We believe this approach has wide applicability for improving the quality and availability of data, which is increasingly important for decision-making and resource allocation. ACM Classification: H5.2 [Information interfaces and presentation]:

Abstract—Organizations in developing regions want to efficiently collect digital data, but standard data gathering practices from the developed world are often inappropriate. Traditional techniques for form design and data quality are expensive and labour-intensive. We propose a new data-driven approach to form design, execution (filling) and quality assurance. We demonstrate USHER, an end-to-end system that automatically generates data entry forms that enforce and maintain data quality constraints during execution. The system features a probabilistic engine that drives form-user interactions to encourage correct answers. I.

Interactive information visualization systems rely on widgets to allow users to interact with the data and modify the representation. We define interactive legends as a class of controls combining the visual representation of static legends and interaction mechanisms of widgets. As interactive legends start to appear in popular websites, we categorize their designs for common data types and evaluate their effectiveness compare to standard widgets. Results suggest that 1) interactive legends can lead to faster perception of the mapping between data values and visual encodings and 2) interaction time is affected differently depending on the data type. Additionally, our study indicates superiority both in terms of perception and interaction of ordinal controls over numerical ones. Numerical techniques are mostly used in today’s systems. By providing solutions to allowing users to modify ranges interactively, we believe that interactive legends make it possible to increase the use of ordinal techniques for visual exploration. Categories and Subject Descriptors (according to ACM CCS):

Abstract—Tag clouds have proliferated over the web over the last decade. They provide a visual summary of a collection of texts by visually depicting the tag frequency by font size. In use, tag clouds can evolve as the associated data source changes over time. Interesting discussions around tag clouds often include a series of tag clouds and consider how they evolve over time. However, since tag clouds do not explicitly represent trends or support comparisons, the cognitive demands placed on the person for perceiving trends in multiple tag clouds are high. In this paper, we introduce SparkClouds, which integrate sparklines [23] into a tag cloud to convey trends between multiple tag clouds. We present results from a controlled study that compares SparkClouds with two traditional trend visualizations—multiple line graphs and stacked bar charts—as well as Parallel Tag Clouds [4]. Results show that SparkClouds ’ ability to show trends compares favourably to the alternative visualizations. Index Terms—Tag clouds, trend visualization, multiple line graphs, stacked bar charts, evaluation. 1

Blogs are becoming an increasingly important medium— socially, academically, and politically. Much research has involved analyzing blogs, but less work has considered how such analytic techniques might be incorporated into tools for blog readers. A new tool, metaViz, analyzes political blogs for potential conceptual metaphors and presents them to blog readers. This paper presents a study exploring the types of critical and creative thinking fostered by metaViz as evidenced by user comments and discussion on the system. These results indicate the effectiveness of various system features at fostering critical thinking and creativity, specifically in terms of deep, structural reasoning about metaphors and creatively extending existing metaphors. Furthermore, the results carry broader implications beyond blogs and politics about exploring alternate configurations between computation and human thought. Author Keywords Metaphor, political blogs, blog readers, computational metaphor identification, critical thinking, creativity.