Abstract
Designing software for exploring hierarchical data sets is challenging because users can easily become lost in large hierarchies. We present a novel interface, the hoptree, to assist users with navigating large hierarchies. The hoptree preserves navigational history and context and allows one-click navigation to recently-visited locations. We describe the design of hoptrees and an implementation that we created for a tree exploration application. We discuss the potential for hoptrees to be used in a wide variety of hierarchy navigation scenarios. Through a controlled experiment, we compared the effectiveness of hoptrees to a breadcrumb navigation interface. Study participants overwhelmingly preferred the hoptree, with improved time-on-task with no difference in error rates.
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Brooks, M., West, J.D., Aragon, C.R., Bergstrom, C.T. (2013). Hoptrees: Branching History Navigation for Hierarchies. In: Kotzé, P., Marsden, G., Lindgaard, G., Wesson, J., Winckler, M. (eds) Human-Computer Interaction – INTERACT 2013. INTERACT 2013. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8119. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40477-1_20
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40477-1_20
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