An exploratory evaluation of three interfaces for browsing large hierarchical tables of contents

TitleAn exploratory evaluation of three interfaces for browsing large hierarchical tables of contents
Publication TypeJournal Articles
Year of Publication1994
AuthorsChimera R, Shneiderman B
JournalACM Trans. Inf. Syst.
Volume12
Issue4
Pagination383 - 406
Date Published1994/10//
ISBN Number1046-8188
KeywordsBrowsing, hierarchies, table of contents, User interfaces
Abstract

Three different interfaces were used to browse a large (1296 items) table of contents. A fully expanded stable interface, expand/contract interface, and multipane interface were studied in a between-groups experiment with 41 novice participants. Nine timed fact retrieval tasks were performed; each task is analyzed and discussed separately. We found that both the expand/contract and multipane interfaces produced significantly faster times than the stable interface for many tasks using this large hierarchy; other advantages of the expand/contract and multipane interfaces over the stable interface are discussed. The animation characteristics of the expand/contract interface appear to play a major role. Refinements to the multipane and expand/contract interfaces are suggested. A predictive model for measuring navigation effort of each interface is presented.

URLhttp://doi.acm.org/10.1145/185462.185483
DOI10.1145/185462.185483