915072
Exploring auction databases through interactive visualization
We introduce AuctionExplorer, a suite of tools for exploring databases of online auctions. The suite combines tools for collecting, processing, and interactively exploring auction attributes (e.g., seller rating), and the bid history (price evolution represented as a time series). Part of AuctionExplorer's power comes from its coupling of the two information structures, thereby allowing exploration of relationships between them. Exploration can be directed by hypothesis testing or exploratory data analysis. We propose a process for visual data analysis and illustrate AuctionExplorer's operations with a dataset of eBay auctions. Insights may improve seller, bidder, auction house, and other vendors' understanding of the market, thereby assisting their decision making process. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
8937545
Universal usability
see knowledge so disseminated through the mass of mankind that it may…reach even the extremes of society: beggars and kings.
10506311
Improving the human factors aspect of database interactions
The widespread dissemination of computer and information systems to nontechnically trained individuals requires a new approach to the design and development of database interfaces. This paper provides the motivational background for controlled psychological experimentation in exploring the person/machine interface. Frameworks for the reductionist approach are given, research methods discussed, research issues presented, and a small experiment is offered as an example of what can be accomplished. This experiment is a comparison of natural and artificial language query facilities. Although subjects posed approximately equal numbers of valid queries with either facility, natural language users made significantly more invalid queries which could not be answered from the database that was described.
12355336
Direct annotation: a drag-and-drop strategy for labeling photos
Annotating photographs is such a time-consuming, tedious and error-prone data entry task that it discourages most owners of personal photo libraries. By allowing the user to drag labels, such as personal names, from a scrolling list and drop them onto a photo, we believe we can make the task faster, easier and more appealing. Since the names are entered in a database, searching for all photos of a friend or family member is dramatically simplified. We describe the user interface design and the database schema to support direct annotation, as implemented in our PhotoFinder prototype.
16512886
Opportunities for data base reorganization
If the contents of the data base are volatile, automating the process does not eliminate the need for reorganization. In fact, the minor inefficiencies which could be tolerated with small files are a costly burden in the massive data bases which are increasingly common. There are numerous techniques for improving data base performance; this paper is concerned with the process known as reorganization. Reorganization is the rewriting of fields of data in such a way that the logical and physical accessing algorithms are unaffected (although the access paths may be altered) except that they now operate more economically. Economics include saving of storage space or execution time or both. In on-line systems there is the additional motivation of reducing the response time.
11782326
A Knowledge Integration Framework for Information Visualization
Users can better understand complex data sets by combining insights from multiple coordinated visual displays that include relevant domain knowledge. When dealing with multidimensional data and clustering results, the most familiar displays and comprehensible are 1- and 2-dimensional projections (histograms, and scatterplots). Other easily understood displays of domain knowledge are tabular and hierarchical information for the same or related data sets. The novel parallel coordinates view [6] powered by a direct-manipulation search, offers strong advantages, but requires some training for most users. We provide a review of related work in the area of information visualization, and introduce new tools and interaction examples on how to incorporate users' domain knowledge for understanding clustering results. Our examples present hierarchical clustering of gene expression data, coordinated with a parallel coordinates view and with the gene annotation and gene ontology.
36247121
Navigating in hyperspace: designing a structure-based toolbox
26554081
Structural analysis of hypertexts: identifying hierarchies and useful metrics
Hypertext users often suffer from the “lost in hyperspace” problem: disorientation from too many jumps while traversing a complex network. One solution to this problem is improved authoring to create more comprehensible structures. This paper proposes several authoring tools, based on hypertext structure analysis.
In many hypertext systems authors are encouraged to create hierarchical structures, but when writing, the hierarchy is lost because of the inclusion of cross-reference links. The first part of this paper looks at ways of recovering lost hierarchies and finding new ones, offering authors different views of the same hypertext. The second part helps authors by identifying properties of the hypertext document. Multiple metrics are developed including compactness and stratum. Compactness indicates the intrinsic connectedness of the hypertext, and stratum reveals to what degree the hypertext is organized so that some nodes must be read before others.
Several existing hypertexts are used to illustrate the benefits of each technique. The collection of techniques provides a multifaceted view of the hypertext, which should allow authors to reduce undesired structural complexity and create documents that readers can traverse more easily.