Benjamin B. Bederson
Aaron Clamage
Mary P. Czerwinski
George G. Robertson
Abstract
Calendar applications for small handheld devices are growing in popularity. This led us to develop DateLens, a novel calendar interface for PDAs designed to support complex tasks. It uses a fisheye representation coupled with compact overviews to give the big picture in a small space. The interface also gives users control over the visible time period, as well as supporting integrated search to discover patterns and outliers. Designed with device scalability in mind, DateLens currently runs on desktop computers as well as PDAs. Two user studies were conducted to examine the viability of DateLens as a replacement for traditional calendar visualizations. In the first study, non-PDA users performed complex tasks significantly faster with DateLens than with the Microsoft Pocket PC 2002TM calendar (using a PDA emulator). In addition, they rated DateLens as being easier to use than the default calendar application for a majority of the tasks. In the second study, the participants were expert Pocket PC users and the software was run on their own devices. Again, DateLens performed significantly faster for the complex tasks, and there were satisfaction differences favoring each calendar for different kinds of tasks. From these studies, it is clear that DateLens is superior for more complex tasks such as those associated with longer time periods. For daily event tracking, users familiar with the default Pocket PC calendar strongly preferred its daily view and behaviors.
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Article Appendix
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Index Terms
- DateLens: A fisheye calendar interface for PDAs
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Reviews
Hector A. Villa-Martinez
A calendar program for Pocket PC-compatible personal digital assistants (PDAs) is described in this paper. The design of programs for these devices presents many problems, due to their limited screen space. The authors address this problem using a fisheye distortion technique that gives more space to the current date, less to the rest of the week, and still less to the rest of the month. To further enhance the user experience, DateLens has four visualization modes and integrated search. The paper is organized as follows: section 1 is the introduction. In section 2, there is a description of the program’s features. Sections 3 and 4 present two studies comparing DateLens with the Pocket PC’s own built-in calendar. The first study was done using novice users, while the second was done with Pocket PC experts. The authors conclude that DateLens was superior for complex tasks, but, for easy tasks, the experts preferred the built-in calendar. The paper is very well written; it includes many figures showing the program interface. In my opinion, the main contribution of the paper is that the authors prove that fisheye interfaces are suitable for small screen devices. Online Computing Reviews Service
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