A Fisheye Calendar Interface for PDAs: Providing Overviews for Small Displays

Abstract

Calendar applications for small handheld devices such as PDAs are growing in popularity. This led us to develop FishCal, a novel calendar interface for PDAs. It supports users in performing planning and analysis tasks by using a fisheye representation of dates coupled with compact overviews, user control over the visible time period, and integrated search. This enables users to see overviews and to easily navigate the calendar structure, and to discover patterns and outliers. FishCal was evaluated in a benchmark usability study comparing it to Microsoft's Pocket PC 2002(tm) calendar. Eleven users performed complex tasks significantly faster and completed them more often with FishCal. Task by task user satisfaction data showed a significant advantage for FishCal as well. A number of usability issues were identified to aid in the iterative refinement of FishCal. Keywords Fisheye Views, Information Visualization, Calendar Interfaces, PDAs, Animation, Graphics. (UMIACS-TR-2002-48) (HCIL-TR-2002-09)