Find in Library

Studies have shown that visualization can be an effective methodology in analyzing a large amount of data rapidly by exploiting the user's perceptual cognition. Especially, where the information space is filled by considerable amount of noise. This paper introduces a visualization method that presents online message boards through an intuitive graphical illustration. The improved system achieves higher visual abstraction by applying color coding to symbolize multiple attributes – activities, time-related factors, and turbulence – of threads together. The magnitude of each thread is projected as the dimension of a graphical shape. In addition, the system provides the significance of threads with the positional attribute on the viewing window. Preliminary analysis reiterates the efficiency of the visual interface for search activities and also suggests further agendas for future study.