Zoom 5809 Bedienungsanleitung PDF herunterladen (Seite 4)

For this reason all local and remote information items in

ZOIL are regarded as objects of different classes as

described in the aforementioned OO model of information

in PIM. The class of an object defines its attributes and

metadata fields (e.g. “From:”-field of a mail or GPS

coordinates of a photo) and the possible relations to other

items (e.g. a mail is sent by a person, a mail is sent to a

person, a person can be a friend of other persons).

Furthermore the class defines the available user interaction

possibilities (or methods) connected with the object and

their visibility and presentation on the user interface

depending on the available screen estate and the currently

active views and filters (see figure 1). The class definitions

in ZOIL thereby resemble a basic domain model of PIM

that constitutes a “model world” interface defining visible

attributes, relations and functionality of information items

including their presentation and behavior on the user

interface. OO inheritance and polymorphism are then used

to achieve a maximum degree of consistency in the classes

and therefore also in the ways the user can interact with the

system and manage different information forms.

However, an OOUI with a basic domain model might still

be too restrictive to satisfy all user needs in PIM. As David

Karger points out in [25] developers can hardly predict

which information objects need to be stored, retrieved, and

viewed or what relationships and attributes are worth

storing and recording in day-to-day practice. Thus the

domain model within a ZOIL user interface should be

extensible and customizable by the user through easily

adding new information forms with new functionality or

adding further properties, relations and views anytime

during runtime.

ZOIL Design Principle 2: Semantic Zooming

In a ZOIL user interface all information items from all data

sources appear as visual representations at one or more

places in the information landscape. However, unlike in

today’s desktop metaphor, this landscape is not limited to

the visible screen size but resembles a virtual canvas of

infinite size and resolution (as known from [31] and [32]).

All items and their connected functionality can be accessed

by panning to the right spot in the information landscape

and zooming in. ZOIL thereby uses “semantic zooming”

[31] which means that the geometric growth in display

space is not only used to render more details, but to reveal

that content and functionality which is of most use to the

user. If the user zooms into more complex items like

documents, drawings or spreadsheets they become editable

on-the-spot without the need to open a dedicated

application window (see figure 2). Thus the available

functionality is always coupled with the information item

itself as it is proposed by object-oriented user interface

design.

Zooming out of the information landscape leads to a

decrease of display space. The visual representation of an

information item gradually collapses to an icon or glyph.

Eventually an information item is represented as a single

remaining pixel. Together with the neighboring pixels this

pixel can then be perceived as a cluster or a part of an

overview visualization aggregating a large amount of items.

An important benefit of using semantic zooming to navigate

the information space is the natural “feel” and the

“intuitiveness” of zooming because of its similarity to the

principles of the physical world. However, a pure ZUI has

some disadvantages because of the absence of peripheral

views. This will be part of our future research work and is

discussed in the last section of this paper.

ZOIL Design Principle 3: Nested Information

Visualization

Since the number of information items in PIM can easily

add up to thousands or millions of items, it is necessary to

find ways to structure large amounts of items and to

efficiently access them according to the user’s current

information need and activity. In current practice we

typically use physical piles of papers on our desktops,

electronic folders and subfolders on our hard disk or the

inbox of our email client to establish such “islands of

relative structure and coherence.” [22, p.12] Jones and

Teevan refer to these islands as “personal information

collections” (PICs) where “people have made some

conscious effort to control both the information that goes in

and also, usually but not necessarily, how this information

is organized”. Thereby PICs should be considered “not as

defined by technical format or application, but rather as

defined by activities of people […].”

In ZOIL, equivalents to such PICs can be created

persistently as “portals” at arbitrary locations in the

information landscape by specifying a size and location in

the landscape and assigning the desired information items

and a visualization type (e.g. geographic maps, time lines,

networks, tree views or simply an empty canvas) to the new

portal. These visualizations are then used to display each

contained information item according to the items’

properties or relations. For example a collection of photos

could appear as zoomable thumbnails on a geographic map

using GPS coordinates or in temporal order within a

timeline using their timestamp. Since ZOIL user interfaces

make use of an object-oriented domain model, different

kinds of information items can be freely combined within a

single portal using their common base classes. This enables

the user to place and manage different forms of information

in a single PIC without being limited to certain data formats

Figure 2. Semantic zooming into an information item reveals

not only more content but also the necessary functionality.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Kommentare zu diesen Handbüchern

Keine Kommentare

Zoom 5809 Bedienungsanleitung Seite 4

Kommentare zu diesen Handbüchern

Verwandte Produkte und Handbücher für Vernetzung Zoom 5809