An Interaction Model for Experimental Data Analysis Using Spatial Positioning

In software usability testing, empirical software engineering, or user evaluation, experimenters collect various types of data. Understanding such data requires cognitively intensive qualitative analysis based on the cycle of discovery and validation processes. We need computational tools that are suitable for supporting experimenters to discover important aspects of the data, to collect them, to store them and to share them with peers. Our approach to support these processes is to provide the tool, Time-ART, which uses spatial positioning as an interactive schema. This paper discusses the nature of experimental video analysis tasks and identifies requirements for supporting such tasks. An interaction model for the Time-ART system uses spatial positioning. The interaction model is based on our previous experience of developing the ART system, which supports writing by using two-dimensional positioning.