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Empirical Evaluation of a Visual Interface for Exploring Message Boards

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Advances in Visual Computing (ISVC 2006)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNIP,volume 4291))

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Abstract

This paper introduces a method that presents a number of characteristics of threads in a discussion forum through graphical illustrations. This technique brings together visual components, such as dimension, color, intensity, and position to present multiple aspects of a thread including the amount of information, popularity, activities, comparative value, and tenure of the thread. This high visual abstraction of threads allows us to display a large number of threads showing overall properties of the contents on a limited screen space. These proposed visualization techniques will assist the user to filtering noisy threads effectively from threads having important features. We have conducted an experimental study, which compares the effectiveness of the developed visual interface to a traditional text-based interface. The experimental study has shown that the user’s search speed and accuracy in finding noticeable threads from a huge collection of threads has improved significantly by using the visual navigation tool.

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© 2006 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Kim, B., Johnson, P., Baker, J. (2006). Empirical Evaluation of a Visual Interface for Exploring Message Boards. In: Bebis, G., et al. Advances in Visual Computing. ISVC 2006. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 4291. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11919476_30

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11919476_30

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-48628-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-48631-2

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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