Cursor caging:enhancing focus targeting in interactive fisheye views  

作　　者：SONG HongZhi FU Yi ZHANG Liang ZHANG XiaoLong(Luke) 

机构地区：[1]College of Informatics,South China Agricultural University [2]College of Information Sciences and Technology,Pennsylvania State University,307D IST Building,University Park,PA 16802,USA

出　　处：《Science China(Information Sciences)》2013年第5期110-125,共16页中国科学（信息科学）（英文版）

基　　金：supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 60875045);Scientific Research Fund for the Returned Overseas Chinese Scholars,Ministry of Education of China (2007 #31)

摘　　要：Fisheye view is an effective approach to visualizing and navigating large data sets by offering both local details and global context in the same view. However, by using different magnification factors for detail and context information, fisheye view also leads to new usability issues, one of which is the focus targeting difficulty. This challenge happens when a user tries to select a target to either shift the focus to a new place or chooses the target. Because of the magnification factors applied to the fisheye view, the target moves when the cursor moves, and consequently, the moving distance the cursor actually needs to travel to reach the target does not match the distance between the cursor and target shown on the screen. Task accuracy and efficiency can be affected. This paper analyzes the mechanism of this difficulty and proposes a new technique, cursor caging, as a method to alleviate the focus targeting difficulty in interactive fisheye views. This technique extends the fisheye magnification approach from one element to a focal region, which can contain several elements, and allows the mouse cursor to move freely inside this region without affecting the magnification of objects inside the focal region. In addition to the mathematical representation of this technique, we also develop two designs that incorporate the cursor caging concept in fisheye views, and describe a usability study on the technique. Our results showed that cursor caging can significantly improve the task completion time and reduce the error rate in focusing targeting tasks.Fisheye view is an effective approach to visualizing and navigating large data sets by offering both local details and global context in the same view. However, by using different magnification factors for detail and context information, fisheye view also leads to new usability issues, one of which is the focus targeting difficulty. This challenge happens when a user tries to select a target to either shift the focus to a new place or chooses the target. Because of the magnification factors applied to the fisheye view, the target moves when the cursor moves, and consequently, the moving distance the cursor actually needs to travel to reach the target does not match the distance between the cursor and target shown on the screen. Task accuracy and efficiency can be affected. This paper analyzes the mechanism of this difficulty and proposes a new technique, cursor caging, as a method to alleviate the focus targeting difficulty in interactive fisheye views. This technique extends the fisheye magnification approach from one element to a focal region, which can contain several elements, and allows the mouse cursor to move freely inside this region without affecting the magnification of objects inside the focal region. In addition to the mathematical representation of this technique, we also develop two designs that incorporate the cursor caging concept in fisheye views, and describe a usability study on the technique. Our results showed that cursor caging can significantly improve the task completion time and reduce the error rate in focusing targeting tasks.

关 键 词：fisheye view non-linear magnification focus targeting formal analysis cursor caging 

分 类 号：TP391.41[自动化与计算机技术—计算机应用技术]