Investigating The Direct Manipulation Of Ranking Tables For Time Navigation

We introduce a novel time navigation technique to update ranking tables by direct manipulation. The technique allows users to drag a table's cells to change the time period, while a line chart overlays on top of the table to provide an overview of the changes. The line chart is also a visual hint to control the pace at which data are updated. We explore the design and usability of this technique for table variations in size, time spans and data variability. We report the results of a usability study, using academic citation rankings and economic complexity datasets, and discuss design implications coming with real-world scenarios such as missing data and affordance.