People working with data often move their data across multiple applications, because they rely on these apps' complementing user experiences to best complete their tasks. Since traditional copy-and-paste approaches do not accommodate diverse table representations adopted by different apps, users spend considerable effort to reconstruct data formats and visual representations, making cross-app workflows costly. For example, when transferring a spreadsheet table with conditional formatting to a markup document, users spend substantial time translating its structure into appropriate tags and manually reformat color. This paper introduces MagicCopy, an AI-powered cross-app copy-and-paste, leveraging source and target contexts and user-specified instructions in natural language to automatically extract, parse, transform, and (re)format data from one app to another. In a study with sixteen participants, users quickly learned and applied MagicCopy to move data across three pairs of tools. Participants further explored diverse applications of MagicCopy to support more streamlined crossed-application interaction in their workflows.

Chat-based prompts respond with verbose linear-sequential texts, making it difficult to explore and refine ambiguous intents, back up and reinterpret, or shift directions in creative AI-assisted design work. AI-Instruments instead embody "prompts" as interface objects via three key principles: (1) Reification of user-intent as reusable direct-manipulation instruments; (2) Reflection of multiple interpretations of ambiguous user-intents (Reflection-in-intent) as well as the range of AI-model responses (Reflection-in-response) to inform design "moves" towards a desired result; and (3) Grounding to instantiate an instrument from an example, result, or extrapolation directly from another instrument. Further, AI-Instruments leverage LLM's to suggest, vary, and refine new instruments, enabling a system that goes beyond hard-coded functionality by generating its own instrumental controls from content. We demonstrate four technology probes, applied to image generation, and qualitative insights from twelve participants, showing how AI-Instruments address challenges of intent formulation, steering via direct manipulation, and non-linear iterative workflows to reflect and resolve ambiguous intents.

This article explores how the ability to recall information in data visualizations depends on the presentation technology. Participants viewed 10 Isotype visualizations on a 2D screen, in 3D, in Virtual Reality (VR) and in Mixed Reality (MR). To provide a fair comparison between the three 3D conditions, we used LIDAR to capture the details of the physical rooms, and used this information to create our textured 3D models. For all environments, we measured the number of visualizations recalled and their order (2D) or spatial location (3D, VR, MR). We also measured the number of syntactic and semantic features recalled. Results of our study show increased recall and greater richness of data understanding in the MR condition. Not only did participants recall more visualizations and ordinal/spatial positions in MR, but they also remembered more details about graph axes and data mappings, and more information about the shape of the data. We discuss how differences in the spatial and kinesthetic cues provided in these different environments could contribute to these results, and reasons why we did not observe comparable performance in the 3D and VR conditions.

Using multiple devices to exploit their strengths and mechanics for a task is referred to as “migration.” However, re-establishing context upon moving from one device to another can be cumbersome. We propose opportunistic nudges as a way to more seamlessly share content between personal devices. Opportunistic nudges appear in the bezel when a device migration occurs and can be interacted with to quickly share files and applications. However, if the user ignores them, they automatically disappear after some time. We explore the design space of opportunistic nudges through rapid prototyping and develop a preliminary design space consisting of four stages. Focusing on six design parameters of the Visualization stage, we gather feedback on the concept through an exploratory user study. Results show that opportunistic nudges can be an effective way to reduce the transaction costs of sharing content between devices.

We present AdHocProx, a system that uses device-relative, inside-out sensing to augment co-located collaboration across multiple devices, without recourse to externally-anchored beacons – or even reliance on WiFi connectivity. AdHocProx achives this via sensors including dual ultra-wideband (UWB) radios for sensing distance and angle to other devices in dynamic, ad-hoc arrangements; plus capacitive grip to determine where the user’s hands hold the device, and to partially correct for the resulting UWB signal attenuation. All spatial sensing and communication takes place via the side-channel capability of the UWB radios, suitable for small-group collaboration across up to four devices (eight UWB radios). Together, these sensors detect proximity and natural, socially meaningful device movements to enable contextual interaction techniques. We find that AdHocProx can obtain 95% accuracy recognizing various ad-hoc device arrangements in an offline evaluation, with participants particularly appreciative of interaction techniques that automatically leverage proximity-awareness and relative orientation amongst multiple devices.

We present Hanstreamer, a free and open-source system for webcam-based data presentation. The system performs real-time gesture recognition on the user's webcam video stream to provide interactive data visuals. Apart from the standard chart and map visuals, Hanstreamer is the first such video data presentation system to support network visualisation and interactive DimpVis-style time-series data exploration. The system is ready for use with popular online meeting software such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams.

We present Escapement, a video prototyping tool that introduces a powerful new concept for prototyping screen-based interfaces by flexibly mapping sensor values to dynamic playback control of videos. This recasts the time dimension of video mock-ups as sensor-mediated interaction. This abstraction of time as interaction, which we dub video-escapement prototyping, empowers designers to rapidly explore and viscerally experience direct touch or sensor-mediated interactions across one or more device displays. Our system affords cross-device and bidirectional remote (tele-present) experiences via cloud-based state sharing across multiple devices. This makes Escapement especially potent for exploring multi-device, dual-screen, or remote-work interactions for screen-based applications. We introduce the core concept of sensor-mediated abstraction of time for quickly generating video-based interactive prototypes of screen-based applications, share the results of observations of long-term usage of video-escapement techniques with experienced interaction designers, and articulate design choices for supporting a reflective, iterative, and open-ended creative design process.

Structured note-taking forms such as sketchnoting, self-tracking journals, and bullet journaling go beyond immediate capture of information scraps. Instead, hand-drawn pride-in-craftmanship increases perceived value for sharing and display. But hand-crafting lists, tables, and calendars is tedious and repetitive. To support these practices digitally, Style Blink ("Style-Blocks+Ink") explores handcrafted styling as a first-class object. Style-blocks encapsulate digital ink, enabling people to craft, modify, and reuse embellishments and decorations for larger structures, and apply custom layouts. For example, we provide interaction instruments that style ink for personal expression, inking palettes that afford creative experimentation, fillable pens that can be "loaded" with commands and actions to replace menu selections, techniques to customize inked structures post-creation by modifying the underlying handcrafted style-blocks and to re-layout the overall structure to match users' preferred template. In effect, any ink stroke, notation, or sketch can be encapsulated as a style-object and re-purposed as a tool. Feedback from 13 users show the potential of style adaptation and re-use in individual sketching practices.

To better ground technical (systems) investigation and interaction design of cross-device experiences, we contribute an in-depth survey of existing multi-device practices, including fragmented workflows across devices and the way people physically organize and configure their workspaces to support such activity. Further, this survey documents a historically significant moment of transition to a new future of remote work, an existing trend dramatically accelerated by the abrupt switch to work-from-home (and having to contend with the demands of home-at-work) during the COVID-19 pandemic. We surveyed 97 participants, and collected photographs of home setups and open-ended answers to 50 questions categorized in 5 themes. We characterize the wide range of multi-device physical configurations and identify five usage patterns, including: partitioning tasks, integrating multi-device usage, cloning tasks to other devices, expanding tasks and inputs to multiple devices, and migrating between devices. Our analysis also sheds light on the benefits and challenges people face when their workflow is fragmented across multiple devices. These insights have implications for the design of multi-device experiences that support people’s fragmented workflows.

An interactive approach plays a vital role in 3D visualization. But to bring the interactive approach and their techniques on mobile device is not an easy task due to the limitations of mobile devices. But by considering the plus points of different properties of mobile devices i. e. network speed etc. it is possible to perform interactive visualization on mobile devices. This can be performed locally on mobile devices by considering local storage and can apply on remote concept by in view of mobile as client and server as storage. In this paper focus is given on various interactive techniques for local and remote visualization on mobile devices. Also discuss novel framework for 3D visualization on mobile devices.

Sketchnoting is a form of visual note taking where people listen to, synthesize, and visualize ideas from a talk or other event using a combination of pictures, diagrams, and text. Little is known about the design space of this kind of visual note taking. With an eye towards informing the implementation of digital equivalents of sketchnoting, inking, and note taking, we introduce a classification of sketchnote styles and techniques, with a qualitative analysis of 103 sketchnotes, and situated in context with six semi-structured follow up interviews. Our findings distill core sketchnote components (content, layout, structuring elements, and visual styling) and dimensions of the sketchnote design space, classifying levels of conciseness, illustration, structure, personification, cohesion, and craftsmanship. We unpack strategies to address particular note taking challenges, for example dealing with constraints of live drawings, and discuss relevance for future digital inking tools, such as recomposition, styling, and design suggestions.

This paper investigates how to make data comics interactive. Data comics are an effective and versatile means for visual communication, leveraging the power of sequential narration and combined textual and visual content, while providing an overview of the storyline through panels assembled in expressive layouts. While a powerful static storytelling medium that works well on paper support, adding interactivity to data comics can enable non-linear storytelling, personalization, levels of details, explanations, and potentially enriched user experiences. This paper introduces a set of operations tailored to support data comics narrative goals that go beyond the traditional linear, immutable storyline curated by a story author. The goals and operations include adding and removing panels into pre-defined layouts to support branching, change of perspective, or access to detail-on-demand, as well as providing and modifying data, and interacting with data representation, to support personalization and reader-defined data focus. We propose a lightweight specification language, COMICSCRIPT, for designers to add such interactivity to static comics. To assess the viability of our authoring process, we recruited six professional illustrators, designers and data comics enthusiasts and asked them to craft an interactive comic, allowing us to understand authoring workflow and potential of our approach. We present examples of interactive comics in a gallery. This initial step towards understanding the design space of interactive comics can inform the design of creation tools and experiences for interactive storytelling.

ABSTRACTAirConstellations supports a unique semi-fixed style of cross-device interactions via multiple self-spatially-aware armatures to which users can easily attach (or detach) tablets and other devices. In particular, AirConstellations affords highly flexible and dynamic device formations where the users can bring multiple devices together in-air — with 2–5 armatures poseable in 7DoF within the same workspace — to suit the demands of their current task, social situation, app scenario, or mobility needs. This affords an interaction metaphor where relative orientation, proximity, attaching (or detaching) devices, and continuous movement into and out of ad-hoc ensembles can drive context-sensitive interactions. Yet all devices remain self-stable in useful configurations even when released in mid-air. We explore flexible physical arrangement, feedforward of transition options, and layering of devices in-air across a variety of multi-device app scenarios. These include video conferencing with flexible arrangement of the person-space of multiple remote participants around a shared task-space, layered and tiled device formations with overview+detail and shared-to-personal transitions, and flexible composition of UI panels and tool palettes across devices for productivity applications. A preliminary interview study highlights user reactions to AirConstellations, such as for minimally disruptive device formations, easier physical transitions, and balancing ”seeing and being seen” in remote work.

Knowledge work increasingly spans multiple computing surfaces. Yet in status quo user experiences, content as well as tools, behaviors, and workflows are largely bound to the current device-running the current application, for the current user, and at the current moment in time. SurfaceFleet is a system and toolkit that uses resilient distributed programming techniques to explore cross-device interactions that are unbounded in these four dimensions of device, application, user, and time. As a reference implementation, we describe an interface built using SurfaceFleet that employs lightweight, semi-transparent UI elements known as Applets. Applets appear always-on-top of the operating system, application windows, and (conceptually) above the device itself. But all connections and synchronized data are virtualized and made resilient through the cloud. For example, a sharing Applet known as a Portfolio allows a user to drag and drop unbound Interaction Promises into a document. Such promises can then be fulfilled with content asynchronously, at a later time (or multiple times), from another device, and by the same or a different user.

Much of the visualization literature focuses on assessment of visual representations with regard to their effectiveness for understanding data. In the present work, we instead focus on making data visualization experiences more enjoyable, to foster deeper engagement with data. We investigate two strategies to make visualization experiences more enjoyable and engaging: personalization, and immersion. We selected pictographs (composed of multiple data glyphs) as this representation affords creative freedom, allowing people to craft symbolic or whimsical shapes of personal significance to represent data. We present the results of a qualitative study with 12 participants crafting pictographs using a large pen-enabled device and while immersed within a VR environment. Our results indicate that personalization and immersion both have positive impact on making visualizations more enjoyable experiences.

Drawing boards offer a self-stable work surface that is continuously adjustable. On digital displays, such as the Microsoft Surface Studio, these properties open up a class of techniques that sense and respond to tilt adjustments. Each display posture-whether angled high, low, or somewhere in-between-affords some activities, but not others. Because what is appropriate also depends on the application and task, we explore a range of app-specific transitions between reading vs. writing (annotation), public vs. personal, shared person-space vs. task-space, and other nuances of input and feedback, contingent on display angle. Continuous responses provide interactive transitions tailored to each use-case. We show how a variety of knowledge work scenarios can use sensed display adjustments to drive context-appropriate transitions, as well as technical software details of how to best realize these concepts. A preliminary remote user study suggests that techniques must balance effort required to adjust tilt, versus the potential benefits of a sensed transition.

While tablet devices are a promising platform for data visualization, supporting consistent interactions across different types of visualizations on tablets remains an open challenge. In this paper, we present multimodal interactions that function consistently across different visualizations, supporting common operations during visual data analysis. By considering standard interface elements (e.g., axes, marks) and grounding our design in a set of core concepts including operations, parameters, targets, and instruments, we systematically develop interactions applicable to different visualization types. To exemplify how the proposed interactions collectively facilitate data exploration, we employ them in a tablet-based system, InChorus that supports pen, touch, and speech input. Based on a study with 12 participants performing replication and factchecking tasks with InChorus, we discuss how participants adapted to using multimodal input and highlight considerations for future multimodal visualization systems.

The claimed subject matter generates animated data visualization videos. A user interface is displayed that includes a clip library panel, a clips panel, and a configurations panel. The clip library panel includes available data clips; the clips panel includes multiple configured data clips; and, the configurations panel includes properties of a selected data clip from the clips panel. A user interface for entering a dataset is displayed. Multiple data clips dragged from the clip library panel to the clips panel, are added to the clips panel. Configuration settings for a dragged and dropped data clip are displayed in the configurations panel. One or more properties of the data clip are updated. An animated data visualization video is generated based on the dragged and dropped data clips and updated properties, and in a sequence specified in the clips panel.

This report documents the program and the outcomes of Dagstuhl Seminar 19061 ‘Visual Analytics of Multilayer Networks Across Disciplines’. Networks, used to understand systems, often contain multiple types of nodes and/or edges. They are often flattened to a single network, even though real-world systems are more accurately modelled as a set of interacting networks, or layers, with different node and edge types. These are so-called multilayer networks. These networks are studied by researchers both in network visualization and in complex systems – the domain from which the concept of multilayer networks has recently emerged. Moreover, researchers in various application domains study these systems, e.g. biology, digital humanities, sociology and journalism. These research areas have shown parallel individual developments. Therefore, one of the aims of the seminar was to bring together an interdisciplinary community of researchers and practitioners of different disciplines. This interdisciplinary community discussed existing solutions, open challenges and future research directions for visual analytics of multilayer networks across disciplines. The seminar was attended by researchers from information visualization, visual analytics, complex systems and application domains. The application domains covered digital humanities, social sciences, biological sciences, and in public health research (25% of attendees were from these fields). The seminar not only provided multiple application domains for the visualization experts, but also also provided the domains experts with different groups of visualization experts in breakouts sessions, to expose them to multiple approaches to solving their problems. Building on this close working relationship between the visualization and domain experts, working groups were defined to determine which are the important challenges for multilayer network visualization. A number of sub-topics were identified that require further research: A unifying visualization framework, Novel Visual Encodings, Analytic and Attributes, Interaction, Evaluation, Use Cases and Human Factors. The outcomes of the seminar should stimulate collaborative research on these topics between our community, complex networks, and wide range of application domains for the visual analytics of multilayer networks Seminar February 3–8, 2019 – http://www.dagstuhl.de/19061 2012 ACM Subject Classification Human-centered computing → Graph drawings, Humancentered computing → Information visualization, Human-centered computing → Visualization theory, concepts and paradigms, Human-centered computing → Visualization design and evaluation methods