This week three members of SACHI, Aaron Quigley, Miguel Nacenta and Umar Rashid are attending the 11th Advanced Visual Interfaces International Working Conference in Italy. “AVI 2012 is held on the island of Capri (Naples), Italy from May 21 to 25, 2012. Started in 1992 in Roma, and held every two years in different Italian towns, the Conference traditionally brings together experts in different areas of computer science who have a common interest in the conception, design and implementation of visual and, more generally, perceptual interfaces.”
We are presenting two full papers.
FatFonts: Combining the symbolic and visual aspects of numbers, Miguel Nacenta, Uta Hinrichs and Sheelagh Carpendale.
Abstract: “In this paper we explore numeric typeface design for visualization purposes. We introduce FatFonts, a technique for visualizing quantitative data that bridges the gap between numeric and visual representations. FatFonts are based on Arabic numerals but, unlike regular numeric typefaces, the amount of ink (dark pixels) used for each digit is proportional to its quantitative value. This enables accurate reading of the numerical data while preserving an overall visual context. We discuss the challenges of this approach that we identified through our design process and propose a set of design goals that include legibility, familiarity, readability, spatial precision, dynamic range, and resolution. We contribute four FatFont typefaces that are derived from our exploration of the design space that these goals introduce. Finally, we discuss three example scenarios that show how FatFonts can be used for visualization purposes as valuable representation alternatives.”
Read the FatFonts paper here. And also FatFonts features in the New Scientist.
and
The cost of display switching: A comparison of mobile, large display and hybrid UI configuration, Umar Rashid, Miguel Nacenta and Aaron Quigley
Abstract: “Attaching a large external display can help a mobile device user view more content at once. This paper reports on a study investigating how different configurations of input and output across displays affect performance, workload and subjective preferences in map, text and photo search tasks. Experimental results show that a hybrid configuration where visual output is distributed across displays is worst or equivalent to worst in all tasks. A mobile device-controlled large display configuration performs best in the map search task and equal to best in text and photo search tasks (tied with a mobile-only configuration). After conducting a detailed analysis of the performance differences across different UI configurations, we give recommendations for the design of distributed user interfaces.”
Read the Cost of Display Switching paper here.
Along with our colleagues in Nottingham and Birmingham we are chairing and organising the Workshop on Infrastructure and Design Challenges of Coupled Display Visual Interfaces PPD’12. The proceedings can be downloaded here. Finally, Aaron is the session chair for the Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality papers at AVI.