Finding and using implicit structure in human-organized spatial layouts of information

Abstract

Many interfaces allow users to manipulate graphical objects, icons representing underlying data or the data themselves, against a spatial backdrop or canvas. Users take advantage of the flexibility offered by spatial manipulation to create evolving lightweight structures. We have been investigating these implicit organizations so we can support user activities like information management or exploratory analysis. To accomplish this goal, we have analyzed the spatial structures people create in diverse settings and tasks, developed algorithms to detect the common structures we identified in our survey, and experimented with new facilities based on recognized structure. Similar recognitionbased functionality can be used within many common applications, providing more support for users' activities with less attendant overhead.

Multilayer Superimposed Information for Collaborative Annotation in Wikis

“…Users can handle and move elements in a document, or change their properties (such as color or size).In spatial hypertext, hyperlinks may become implicit because they are expressed indirectly by means of visual and spatial relationships (e.g. by positioning elements to form lists, stacks, composites and heaps [26]). Also, elements of the same type can share the visual and spatial characteristics (color, border thickness, font types, adorns, layouts, position, proximity, geometric relations, etc.).…”

Spatial Hypertext as a Reader Tool in Digital Libraries

“…At the heart of Garnet is a spatial parser [6,10], which identifies visual patterns within the arrangement of shapes (i.e. based on shape/position similarity rather than textual similarity).…”

“…There is typically unequal support for different parts of the information seeking process [10]. For example, there is obvious support for the task of retrieving documents from the Digital Library (DL), whereas there is little or no support for the tasks of organizing and collating material discovered while searching and browsing into user-generated structures.…”

Adaptive recognition of implicit structures in human-organized layouts

“…We o w e much to Shipman et al's seminal works on recognition of structures in spatial hypertexts [16] [10]. They investigated spatial layouts that appear in computational and non-computational environments, and developed a visual parser of implicit structures found in such spatial layouts.…”