RE: freebase parallax: user interface for browsing graphs of data

Hi David,

thanks for your message :)

In the meantime, I took a closer look at parallax. There are many nifty
little UI features I like, such as the "what did just happen?" message,
the label showing the particular related resources in a set of connected
resources, e.g. browsing from people to locations and displaying the
related people for each location, although I'm somehow missing an
interaction feature there.

And I'd like to say that in my opinion parallax's core interaction model
of browsing connected *sets* of resources is a incredible important
contribution to the area of graph-based UIs! 

I haven't highlighted that enough in my first message (mainly because I
knew your former prototype of a "nested faceted browser", which has
already demonstrated such an interaction model), but I'd like people to
recognize how important that aspect is for the future of graph-based
data UIs!

> Indeed, initially, the facets and the connections were not
> separated. Then, from user feedback, I split them apart, making those
> two conceptually different features independent and visually separate.

I've been thinking about your point of facets and connections being
conceptually different features. 

In my opinion, they are not conceptually different. I see that it makes
sense (or is even necessary) to make them independent and separate in an
interface with uni-directional filtering, but *conceptually* (including
a possible bidirectional filtering) they are not different. They both
present connected (via a particular property or via a "complex"
function) values/objects, grouped by different dimensions, for a given
set of resources. On top of that, there are interactions with the facets
such as using them as filters or browsing their values. I think, the
need to separate filtering and browsing is a result of limiting to
uni-directional filtering along the graph.

It might make sense to handle value properties (numbers, geolocations,
...) differently than object properties (resources/instances), but as
far as I can see, that wasn't your point. And in your NFB prototype, you
haven't made that distinction. 

So, could you elaborate why you're now making that distinction?

> So if I had it my way, they would be together; but by listening to
> other
> people, they are now separate.

I would love to have a look at that earlier version ;)


Cheers,

Georgi

--
Georgi Kobilarov
Freie Universität Berlin
www.georgikobilarov.com 




> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Huynh [mailto:dfhuynh@alum.mit.edu]
> Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2008 6:36 AM
> To: Georgi Kobilarov
> Cc: public-lod@w3.org; semantic-web@w3c.org
> Subject: Re: freebase parallax: user interface for browsing graphs of
> data
> 
> Hi Georgi,
> 
> I'm glad you like it! And I'm glad you said what you didn't like about
> it :-) Indeed, initially, the facets and the connections were not
> separated. Then, from user feedback, I split them apart, making those
> two conceptually different features independent and visually separate.
> So if I had it my way, they would be together; but by listening to
> other
> people, they are now separate. Who knows, by listening to even more
> people, I might put them back together again. :-)
> 
> Which is to say that I'm really not committed to any particular UI
> design. And it's not accurate to say that I don't believe in the
> usability of bidirectional filtering. I do recognize the desire for
> that, but I just didn't think I had the right UI design for it at the
> time, and even now. So I chose not to support bidirectional filtering
> in
> Parallax, at least until I figure out a UI solution that I'm
> comfortable
> with. But you might as well beat me to it :-) And that's great, too!
> The
> more experimentation, the better! Looking forward to see what you come
> up with!
> 
> Cheers!
> 
> David
> 
> Georgi Kobilarov wrote:
> > Hi David,
> >
> > absolute fantastic work!
> >
> > I very much like the way of selecting connection (and filter) from a
> > list grouped by type. Although I'm missing the option to select all
> > resources just based on type (without selecting a particular
> > predicate/relation). E.g. looking at presidents and then selecting
> > location instead of having to select location (birth) or location
> > (death).
> >
> > What I don't like is the separation of instance-based faceted
filters
> > (left hand side) and connections (right hand side).
> > I know that you don't believe in the usability of bidirectional
> > filtering (e.g. starting with movies, pivoting to actors, filtering
> on
> > location, and then going *back* to movies to see a filtered set of
> > movies). We've discussed that end of last year on the simile list.
> I'll
> > try to disprove that with a prototype of mine ;)
> >
> > Great to see that you're back with new brilliant UI work again!!
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Georgi
> >
> > --
> > Georgi Kobilarov
> > Freie Universität Berlin
> > www.georgikobilarov.com
> >
> >
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: public-lod-request@w3.org [mailto:public-lod-request@w3.org]
> On
> >> Behalf Of David Huynh
> >> Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2008 12:12 AM
> >> To: public-lod@w3.org; semantic-web@w3c.org
> >> Subject: freebase parallax: user interface for browsing graphs of
> data
> >>
> >>
> >> Hi all,
> >>
> >> I've been exploring some user interface ideas for browsing graphs
> (of
> >> data in Freebase) in a user-friendly way, which I think might be
> >> applicable to some of the data that you have. The screencast should
> >> explain:
> >>
> >>     http://mqlx.com/~david/parallax/
> >>
> >> Please let me know what you think!
> >>
> >> Thank you.
> >>
> >> David
> >>
> >
> >

Received on Thursday, 14 August 2008 15:19:37 UTC