An alternative to scrollbars on small screens

ABSTRACT

This paper describes a web-browser based on the focus+context technique Flip Zooming. A prototype was developed and evaluated against an ordinary web-browser that used scrollbars on a small screen with a resolution of 160*160 pixels. A preliminary evaluation show that the prototype provides better overview and makes searching for specific items easier compared to the traditional browser. These findings indicate that there are constraints that have to be acknowledged when designing the user interface on small screens.

REFERENCES

• 1: Lyn Bartram , Albert Ho , John Dill , Frank Henigman, The continuous zoom: a constrained fisheye technique for viewing and navigating large information spaces, Proceedings of the 8th annual ACM symposium on User interface and software technology, p.207-215, November 15-17, 1995, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States [doi>10.1145/215585.215977]
• 2: G. W. Furnas, Generalized fisheye views, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.16-23, April 13-17, 1986, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
• 3: Lars Erik Holmquist, Focus+context visualization with flip zooming and the zoom browser, CHI '97 extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems: looking to the future, March 22-27, 1997, Atlanta, Georgia [doi>10.1145/1120212.1120383]
• 4: Jock D. Mackinlay , George G. Robertson , Stuart K. Card, The perspective wall: detail and context smoothly integrated, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems: Reaching through technology, p.173-176, April 27-May 02, 1991, New Orleans, Louisiana, United States [doi>10.1145/108844.108870]
• 5: George G. Robertson , Jock D. Mackinlay, The document lens, Proceedings of the 6th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology, p.101-108, December 1993, Atlanta, Georgia, United States [doi>10.1145/168642.168652]
• 6: http://www.wapforum.org/(1999-01-04)

INDEX TERMS

Keywords:
flip zooming, focus+context techniques, information visualization, small screens