Information Visualization and Proxemics: Design Opportunities and Empirical Findings

Abstract

People typically interact with information visualizations using a mouse. Their physical movement, orientation, and distance to visualizations are rarely used as input. We explore how to use such spatial relations among people and visualizations (i.e., proxemics) to drive interaction with visualizations, focusing here on the spatial relations between a single user and visualizations on a large display. We implement interaction techniques that zoom and pan, query and relate, and adapt visualizations based on tracking of users' position in relation to a large high-resolution display. Alternative prototypes are tested in three user studies and compared with baseline conditions that use a mouse. Our aim is to gain empirical data on the usefulness of a range of design possibilities and to generate more ideas. Among other things, the results show promise for changing zoom level or visual representation with the user's physical distance to a large display. We discuss possible benefits and potential issues to avoid when designing information visualizations that use proxemics.

Evaluation of Distance-Aware Bimanual Manipulation Techniques for Large High-Resolution Displays

“…Such distance-aware techniques adjust the precision of interaction according to the user's current position [7,18,24,25,27]. For instance, the interactive public ambient display [27] utilizes the user's distance to control public and personal information presentation.…”

“…Related work showed that using physical navigation increases user performance on navigation and visualization tasks [1][2][3]5,18]. Jakobsen et al [18] investigated proxemics for visualization tasks. For instance, the physical sense to abstract data was increased by using proxemics and the user's effort was reduced with proxemic-based zooming and aggregation.…”

“…In previous work the user's distance was considered for selection and navigation tasks [3,18,20,24]. We assume that physical navigation also increases user performance on manipulation tasks.…”

Interaction in the Visualization of Multivariate Networks

“…Adapting visualization interactions to the new setups is therefore a huge challenge [33][34][35]. This issue is beginning to get research attention.…”

“…This issue is beginning to get research attention. New ideas such as proximity-based interaction on highwalls [34] and new models for interactions across devices [35] are emerging. Research in this area will likely begin by exploring specific hardware configurations and progressively evolve towards some unification for classes of technologies over time.…”