Homework #4: Zoomable Visualization Design
Due Fri Sept 27, midnight
The goal of this homework is to creatively design an information space
using zoomable visualization concepts.
Download and install the
KidPad
1.0 software. Read the User Guide to learn the buttons and key
commands. For further info, Kidpad is based on the Jazz
toolkit for zoomable Java applications.
Use Kidpad to design an interactive zoomable visualization of an information
topic of your choice. Choose a topic that is rich enough to make
visualization interesting. For example, include information of different
types, such as quantitative, tree-structured, spatial, or text data.
Some topic ideas are:
-
the timeline of your life
-
your interactive resumé
-
a favorite hobby
-
NCAA football
Your design should make good use of information visualization principles
and the zooming concept. For example, zooming is good for enabling
"overview first". Major trends can be visualized at the top level,
and users can zoom in to drill down into more detailed information.
Use the spatial nature of the zooming space to help users understand and
navigate the information. Use graphical encoding techniques to visualize
quantitative data or other attributes of the information. Be creative.
Send an email to GTA Beth with subject
line "HCI homework4" that contains the following:
-
your name
-
your PID
-
attach the ".kidpad" file and ".jpg" file of your design. These files
can be found in the "KidPad1.0/saved-files" folder. Double check
that you are sending the correct files by testing them.
Important notes about KidPad:
-
KidPad is research software and, hence, not necessarily bug free.
Save your work often, and copy intermediate kidpad files to a backup directory
in case files get corrupted.
-
You must set your screen resolution to match the KidPad resolution (1024x768
or 800x600), otherwise strange errors will occur such as not being able
to enter text.
Alternate software:
If KidPad does not work for you, use the Hinote application which comes
packaged with the Jazz toolkit. Hinote uses the same zooming concepts
as KidPad. You can download
Jazz 1.2 here. Run the hinote.jar file in the jazz-1.2/build
directory ("java -jar hinote.jar"). To enable the "Save" option,
you must run it as an application, not as an applet on a web page.
Important tip: This software is not bug free, save your work often
and make backup copies in case files get corrupted. You may want to avoid
importing images into your information space, as there have been reports
that using images increases likelyhood of crashes, corrupted files, and
lost work.
When submitting your homework, send in your saved .jazz file (or .jazzb
file) and any associated files.
After the due date, you can make your information space viewable
on the web if you want by using HiNote as an applet. See these
instructions about how to do this (except use jar "cvf" not "cvs").
Here is a template
html file.