Intro-Seite

Der Startbereich der Seite bietet drei Zugänge zum Inhalt.

Der User soll in aller Ruhe den für ihn interessanten Content auswählen und nicht von anderen Dingen abgelenkt sein.

First visualization attempts

Elaboration of the ontology module

First visualization attempts

Approach for the direct parameterization on the axis

Parameterization dialog box

One of the first ideas concerning the positioning of the parameterization dialog or menu respectively, was putting them directly on the axes.

Here you can see some methodology designing such a rather simple dialog box.

First visualization attempts

Enhancement of the dialog in the parameter box

First visualization attempts

How much space do the dialogs in the filter modules need?

Some parameters have got more complexity than the others and therefor could need more space. Thus the next step was using the whole length of the axes for the dialog box.

First visualization attempts

Applying one of the parameterization methods, now I could test some typographic issues exploring a little bit the available space possibilities in the dialog boxes.

What I learned from that was that writing down all the input or parameters needed later in the interface on paper and in sketches, one has to try something out immediately and see if it could work at all.

Here you can see some attempts with a 13px bitmap font changing the line height and exploring gaps in order to give semantic groups their own visual identity.

I would say that user interface typography has its own challenge and it differs a little bit from the classic print typography.

First visualization attempts

The problem is when applying the dialog box to the y-axis in the same manner as with x-axis in order to emphasize which axis you are actually manipulating, well you run out of space if you wnat to keep things slim and not to cover the search result data.

First visualization attempts

Besides allocating the parameterization dialog boxes directly on the axis forces me to put the main navigation tools into another area (as you may have noticed already on page 7).

First visualization attempts

One possibility to avoid the problems described on the last pages would be a floating dialog box at the bottom where you could choose the desired parameterization axis.

First visualization attempts

Along the way I realized that the data amount can be parameterized in two different main steps. Step one allows to parameterize the data with the conventional metadata parameters like calender date, name and size directly on the axis (take a look e.g. on the iTunes list). Step two allows to filter data with dynamic parameters like the semantic and physical properties delivered by the new technology algorythms.

Moreover the arrangement for the space of the different modules evolved.

First visualization attempts

Dynamic parameters like the semantic and physical properties live inside a third module settled beneath the ontology module (left of the main viewport).

keypatcher

keypatcher - Thesaurus

The Thesaurus module as the verbal access for an image search

Final visualization

Main viewport presenting the image data results

keypatcher - Konventionelle Parameter

200% zoom on the conventional parameterized axis and the navigation tools

keypatcher - Ablagefach

Backup storage container for saving the collected results

keypatcher - Result "Fuzziness"

Global overview switched to an accurate presentation of the results amount: Since every picture is described by a number of values and properties e.g. an image starting with A would leave an empty gap to his neighbour starting with C.

keypatcher - Image Content Weighting

Finally you can filter the data according to the possibility of the new technology approach.

That means that if the computer can recognize the image content it would be thinkable making yourself a kind of a 'wanted poster'. Imagine you could weight the individual contents according to your purposes. You are looking for pictures with dogs and cats on them but dogs are more important to you than cats so you would be already happy with images that only contain dogs? Well, just mark / weight it with the slider in the objects-filter-module or give the dog a higher number.

This project still needs some tweaking

Yes I know, every project is never ready but here I would like to spend some extra time in the future to make some things more visible, more obvious. Well, e.g. some people shake their heads when they see which image topic I chose ('war') to present the filtering of the search result data. I must defend this decision though, because it is the war pictures or in general images about violence that are so present in the public media. Moreover I had to choose a term that makes it impossible to adress an explicit image to it. But hey, with 'love' I would have put some pornographic image data into the project, wouldn't I? ...

Ok, so maybe I could change the term images are applied to, but what should be done more urgently is e.g. some animations that show the main viewport handling the result data. However this won't be easy because it isn't a linear movement but a more sophisticated fisheye enlargement and movement.