rewind: Visual Exploration of Web Video Viewing History for Self-reflection

Abstract

Due to the rise in popularity of video sharing websites, video streaming services, and social networking services, people daily watch many videos on the web. However, viewers do not commonly access their video viewing history for the purpose of self-reflection and self-representation. A previous research addressed the issue of creating visual mementos, or visualizations to be kept as reminders of life experiences from personal digital data. As a new application of the research, in this paper we present a system named rewind, through which users can create visual mementos of their web video viewing experiences to reminisce about and share. The system rewind provides two kinds of visualizations: MapView (2D) and TubeView (3D), both of which are intended to visualize the YouTube video viewing history of a single user by giving plausible meanings to the size and position of thumbnails and directed links between them. These visualizations remind users of their interests and viewing preferences hidden in the watch history. The user interface of rewind is designed with designated visual exploration functions according to Shneiderman’s Visual Information Seeking Mantra. We also employed an anamorphosis-based, naked-eye 3D display technique in order for TubeView to build an immersive environment for facilitating self-reflection. In addition, the system rewind provides the functionalities that are necessary in a visual memento creation tool to express subjectivity toward the past and to share visual mementos with others while hiding sensitive information.