Exploratory Navigation in Large Multimedia Documents Using Context Lenses

The Context Lens (CL) is a focus+context visualization and navigation tool particularly suited for navigating large documents, or collections of documents. Context Lenses have been applied successfully to navigating Web pages, video collections and slide presentations. In this paper we discuss our experiences both with linear as well as with hierarchical Context Lenses. We focus on the use of information scent in the hierarchical Context Lens, and on supporting an exploratory navigation style in documents. Exploratory navigation is supported by the fact that a CL delays commitment in the user interface through an interaction style called brushing. Brushing lowers the cost of exploring a section of the document and therefore does not only support, but actively encourage an exploratory navigation style. This aspect of Context Lenses is especially valuable for navigation of large amounts of media data on low bandwidth devices, such as wireless PDAs.