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Dissertation Information for Emile L. Morse

NAME:
- Emile L. Morse

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- Library and Information Science

SCHOOL:
- University of Pittsburgh (USA) (1999)

ADVISORS:
- Michael Lewis

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- Louise Su
- James G. Williams
- Edie Rasmussen
- Kai Olsen

MPACT Status: Fully Complete

Title: Evaluation of visual information browsing displays

Abstract: Visual displays as components of information retrieval systems are widely deployed yet have had little testing with users. The kinds of testing that have been performed have suffered from various problems related to trying to infer which observed effects are due to the interface and which things are attributable to the user's understanding of the visual display itself. The approach of this work is to test displays in isolation. The question being addressed is: what do people understand about a document set given a particular way of viewing the documents and relations among them? The central idea behind the testing paradigm is to perform bottom-up layered testing.

Preliminary studies were conducted using Boolean data about a document collection. Prototype displays mimicked lists of text or words, lists of icons, numeric tables, x-y graphs, and a visual display (called a 'spring') that implemented the placement algorithm found in the VIBE visual information browsing system. Displays were presented in random order to 439 subjects who performed a series of Boolean tasks. Subjects also ranked the displays according to their personal preferences. The results showed that (1) all the displays were very learnable; (2) visual displays (icons and 'spring' were preferred; and (3) more difficult scenarios were handled most effectively with the 'spring' visual display.

The current studies extend the testing paradigm to data that represents documents as vectors. The aim of this study is to determine how well users can understand displays based on vector representations. The prototype displays were presented to 192 subjects using computer-mediation. A taxonomy of visual tasks guided development of task sets. Subjects performed visual tasks better with the prototype visual display than with any of the other display types and they preferred displays that supported their performance. In summary, the utility of a visual taxonomy to guide visual display and interface development is supported. In addition, the use of this bottom-up, layered approach has been validated in Boolean and vector conditions and at various levels of difficulty within these categories. This evaluation method might be extended in many directions, including (1) the testing of 3-dimensional prototypes, (2) testing more complex keyterm combinations, and (3) testing the successive application of interface features.

MPACT Scores for Emile L. Morse

A = 0
C = 0
A+C = 0
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2008-01-31 06:24:49

Advisors and Advisees Graph

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Students under Emile L. Morse

ADVISEES:
- None

COMMITTEESHIPS:
- None