Previews and Overviews in Digital Libraries: Designing Surrogates to
Support Visual Information Seeking
Previews and Overviews in Digital Libraries: Designing Surrogates to
Support Visual Information Seeking
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Date
1998-11-03
Authors
Greene, Stephan
Marchionini, Gary
Plaisant, Catherine
Shneiderman, Ben
Advisor
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Abstract
To aid designers of digital library interfaces and web sites in creating
comprehensible, predictable and controllable environments for their users,
we define and discuss the benefits of previews and overviews as visual
information representations. Previews and overviews are graphic or
textual representations of information abstracted from primary information
objects. They serve as surrogates for those objects. When utilized properly,
previews and overviews allow users to rapidly discriminate objects of
interest from those not of interest, and to more fully understand the scope and
nature of large collections of information resources. We provide a more
complete definition of previews and overviews, and discuss system parameters
and aspects of primary information objects relevant to designing
effective preview and overviews. Finally, we present examples that illustrate
the use of previews and overviews and offer suggestions for designers.
(Also cross-referenced as UMIACS-TR-97-73)