TreeMaps
[JOHN92]
[JOHN91]
Description
Should be under focus+context?
For hierarchical information.
Used for seeing hard disk space and structure.
an alternative to listings, outlines, and tree diagrams
(but not to other IV techniques!)
visual display properties:
- color (hue, saturation, brightness)
- texture
- shape
- border
- blinking
Advantages
- Use all available screen space by using rectangular boxes.
- easy to spot the largest files, or the largest files of a particular type
- easy to spot new/old files (creation/modification dates)
Note: easy to spot minima or maxima, but sometimes relevancy isn't
determined by some extreme valuation.
Disadvantages
- lacks an effective method for zooming [PEAR]
- screen becomes too densely packed [PEAR]
- tends to obscure the hierarchical structure of the values [LAMP95]
- provides no way of focusing on one part of the hierarchy without losing the context
[LAMP95]
This page maintained by Mark Brautigam
(PDA version)
Last updated 1 March 1997