Home » Information Browser

Question...

What is the most comfortable way to browse information? HTML?!

Idea: Display information in some ways that match human cognition.

What information to browse?

Java Classes & Web pages. Currently, it's only used as a "Class Browser". Ideally I'd like to use it to browsing the web. Web is like a tree/graph structure which usually contains too much information in it. Furthermore, broken links, slow networking always drive people's nuts. I plan to develop a web-surfing assistant to alleviate this problem.

How human find information?

Java Classes are in a hierarchical structure, so are webpages. When people are surfing information, they try to match what they see and what they expected. (What they see might also have some effect on their expection) And biologically, human get best resolution in Fobea area and a little worse in peripherial area. Phychologically, humans forget things (in a power function curve) so that they need things to prime their memory. Thus, to put detailed information in the center and less important information peripherially makes sense. Moreoever, supporting Back (and Forward) and Goto is also important for human information lookup.

Some design issue:

In addition to the above, there are some design issue which might be interesting to talk about:

  1. Keep the state of previous browsing: When people go back to a place they were, I think it's better to preserve the "context" of everything. Also it's more efficient and easy to implement.
  2. Use the web-metaphor: Not only does the web structure match some of common human concepts, but most people are familiar with the interface.
  3. Support "go to original document": Though it might be a better way to browse information, to support "go to original document" is always needed. I'm not proposing a replacement but an assistant.

More to do:

First, User freedom can still be improved. For example, re-layout of node could be supported. Second, animation, which makes user realize what's happening. Third, a better memory reminder. (Make the previous node/tree on screen)

Usage:

Instead of writing an "usage", I'd like to introduce the current most useful feature: "link to java document". If you're a java programmer who use jdk documents a lot, you won't like the way you search for functions within classes. It's just... tedious and annoying. 

About the "subArctic" package / related information

  1. SubArctic is a Java(tm)-based user interface toolkit under development by Scott Hudson and Ian Smith at the Graphics, Visualization, and Usability Center at Georgia Institute of Technology.
  2. Thinkmap(tm) is a Visual Thesaurus developed by PlumbDesign.
  3. Inxight, established by Xerox, seems most appealing to me. BTW, the hyperbolic tree developed by Xerox PARC has done most of the ideas I had in mind. (Just another idea that has been done by someone else. :)

Information Browser

For various reasons (e.g. Microsoft has different interpretation of Java spec, Java support on Mac is not installed when shipping), you might not be able to use the program. Below are the screen shots.

If you want to use it, Go for Information Browser

Screen shots

Basically, it starts as an applet resides in a web page.

loaded.gif (3302 bytes)

When you clicked on it, another window that will act like an assistant will pop-up. sc_shot01.jpg (22000 bytes)

It shows the overview of class java.applet.Applet, its Constructors, Methods, and Fields. (If you don't know Java, don't worry, they're basically some properties owned by java.applet.Applet) When you click on closed.gif (923 bytes), more information will be shown.

sc_shot02.jpg (26254 bytes)

And the whole screen is like this. When you click on help.gif (931 bytes), the browser opens the JavaDoc for you. You can go anywhere, surf the document tree, and look up any methods you want in the JavaDoc.

Thus, if a web surfing is like this where a Information Browser assists you in organizing the information, I believe the surfing on the web would be more intuitive.

sc_shot03.jpg (84874 bytes)

Having surfed Applet, Panel, Container, Component, if you click on the Method of java.awt.Component, you'll see the methods owns by Components.

sc_shot04.jpg (29522 bytes)

Now you'd like to go back to Panel, you can click on Panel shown in the history bar. You're back to java.awt.Panel. java.awt and it remains the same state as you visited last time. java.awt.Container is magenta because it's the link is visited. (Using the browser metaphor)

sc_shot05.jpg (28018 bytes)

A working view would be like this.

sc_shot06.jpg (45498 bytes)

Last Updated : 7/19/2005 by Bo-chieh Yang (bcyang@alumni.cmu.edu)