Dimensional Congruence for Interactive Visual Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery

Abstract

Many authors in the field of 3D human computer interaction have described the advantages of 3D user interfaces: Intuitive metaphors from daily life, immersive workspaces, virtual environments that closely resemble natural environments, and the usefulness of the third dimension as an additional visualization scale. Nevertheless, there are still few or no successful applications for complex information spaces that make use of it in a natural human-centered manner. In this paper, we propose a novel hybrid user interface for knowledge workers to support document spaces and corresponding visualizations. We propose a combined 2D + 3D interface to support both visualization approaches and interaction metaphors to their maximum potential. Interaction is matched due to the principle of dimensional congruence and a thorough investigation of previous approaches and problems is given. Finally, a user study to evaluate the effectiveness and usability of the proposed system is presented.