Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Toggle buttons allow the user to hide or show all links, all tags or all users
(Fig. 6.11 (2)).
A further filter allows for hiding an individual user or an individual tag concept:
All documents which are modified only by this user (or tagged with only this con-
cept) are hidden. This filter is activated by dragging the corresponding node and
dropping it on a list of hidden elements which is displayed in a filter panel to the
right of the graph (Fig. 6.11 (3)). The user or the tag is then added to this list. By
tapping or clicking on it, the documents are displayed again. It is important to note
that not only one user or one tag can be filtered, but an arbitrary number of them.
It is also possible to focus on one node. Only this node and all directly adjacent
nodes are displayed. All other nodes are hidden from the graph. They are listed in
the filter panel and can be re-displayed by tapping or clicking on one or more entries
in the filter panel.
Finally, the view supports full-text search. An arbitrary query string can be en-
tered in a text input field (Fig. 6.11 (4)). All users, tags and documents that do not
contain this string are hidden from the view.
6.5 Evaluation and Discussion
In a user study we evaluated how CoScribe supports users in integrating information
which is distributed between several printed and digital documents. This setting was
inspired from the findings of one of our field studies, which show that knowledge
workers frequently use interconnected collections of printed and digital documents.
We assessed the ease-of-use and the learnability of the interactions for creating
and following cross-media hyperlinks as well as the use of the pen-enabled tabletop
display. In addition, we had the following hypotheses for the experiment:
H1: Cross-media hyperlinks enable the user to perform a complex infor-
mation retrieval task in a set of interlinked printed and Web documents
more quickly than with traditional pen and paper.
H2: Printed and digital documents are perceived as being more closely con-
nected when using cross-media hyperlinks.
Method
A total of 10 psychology and 6 computer science students (9 female, 7 male) partic-
ipated to single-user sessions of 90 minutes length. Their average age was 25 years
(SD=5.5). The participants judged their computer skills as high (M=5.5 on a 7-point
Likert scale, SD=1.5). They are experienced knowledge workers indicating to work
24.0 hours per week with digital documents (SD=10.9) and 13.5 hours with paper
documents (SD=7.6). A considerable amount of time (M=11.2 hours, SD=7.9) is
spent on working simultaneously with both types of documents. Participation to the
study was voluntary and no compensation was given.
