32
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Chapter II
Presenting Large and
Complex Information
Sets on
Mobile Handhelds
B. Karstens, University of Rostock, Germany
R. Rosenbaum, University of Rostock, Germany
H. Schumann, University of Rostock, Germany
Abstract
The opportunity to access information at any time and any place caused
a boom in the development of small mobile devices in recent years. Due
to their application, these handhelds become smaller and handier, which
leads to new challenges in human-computer interaction. Due to limited
resources of these devices new paradigms for information presentation
and interaction facilities are needed. We take this into account by
applying concepts for interaction and display of information from the
field of information visualization to mobile pocket-sized devices. We focus
This chapter appears in the book, Innovations of Knowledge Management edited by Bonnie Montano.
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2004, Idea
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Presenting Large and Complex Information Sets on Mobile Handhelds
33
on concrete problems caused by presenting huge images and large
hierarchies in such environments. Moreover, we introduce an effective
technique for browsing the World Wide Web via mobile handhelds. The
presented techniques offer an improved support in navigation, orientation
and interaction that enables the user to browse, interpret and handle
presented information much more easily.
Introduction
Small mobile devices have become more powerful and popular in recent years,
and are used in different application areas. Typical examples are personal
mobile navigation systems. However, in the future, the wireless and mobile
access of data and information via little handhelds will become as popular as
browsing the World Wide Web. Since mobile handhelds suffer from limited
resources, like screen space, interaction facilities and computational power,
new paradigms for presenting and exploring complex information on such
devices are needed.
On the other hand, in recent years the visualization of complex information
spaces has evolved to an important and innovative area in computer graphics.
A variety of novel visualization approaches and frameworks have been
developed and proposed. Nevertheless, these approaches were designed for
stationary devices, and using them for mobile handhelds leads to unsolved
problems.
This chapter focuses on the presentation of complex information on pocketsized devices. Information can be represented graphically or by abstract data
sets. Due to the reason that both types require different treatment for presentation purposes, we want to discuss them separately.
Graphical information can be described in many ways, for example by text,
images, video, or combinations of them. To discuss typical problems, we limit
our considerations to one main and frequently used class: still images. Here, we
focus on raster graphics and show how special presentation techniques can be
used to solve the problem of exploring large images on small displays (third
section).
Non-graphical, for example, abstract information, can also be described by a
wide range of representations. However, the main challenge for representation
is to support the navigation and orientation in often complex information
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permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.
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