Dynamic Insets for Context-Aware Graph Navigation

• Published in: Computer graphics forum Vol. 30; no. 3; pp. 861 - 870
• Main Authors: Ghani, S., Riche, N. Henry, Elmqvist, N.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.06.2011
• Subjects: Analysis; Computer graphics; Dynamics; Graph theory; Graphs; H.5.2 [Information Interfaces and Presentation]: User Interfaces; Image processing systems; Interaction styles I.3.6 [Computer Graphics]: Methodology and Techniques; Interaction techniques; Navigation; Networks; Online information services; Roads; Routing (telecommunications); Social networks; Studies; Visual
• ISSN: 0167-7055; 1467-8659
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8659.2011.01935.x

Maintaining both overview and detail while navigating in graphs, such as road networks, airline route maps, or social networks, is difficult, especially when targets of interest are located far apart. We present a navigation technique called Dynamic Insets that provides context awareness for graph navigation. Dynamic insets utilize the topological structure of the network to draw a visual inset for off‐screen nodes that shows a portion of the surrounding area for links leaving the edge of the screen. We implement dynamic insets for general graph navigation as well as geographical maps. We also present results from a set of user studies that show that our technique is more efficient than most of the existing techniques for graph navigation in different networks.