Comparing Speed-Dependent Automatic Zooming with Traditional Scroll, Pan, and Zoom Methods

Speed-dependent automatic zooming couples the user’s rate of motion through an information space with the zoom level—the faster the user moves the ‘higher’ they fly above the work surface. Igarashi and Hinckley [2000] proposed using the technique to improve scrolling through large documents. Their informal preliminary evaluation showed mixed results with participants completing scrolling tasks in roughly the same time, or more slowly, than when using traditional methods. In this paper, we describe the implementation and formal evaluation of two rapidly interactive speed-dependent automatic zooming interfaces. The ecologically oriented evaluation shows that scrolling tasks are solved significantly faster with automatic zooming in both text document and map browsing tasks. Subjective preferences and workload measures also strongly favour the automatic zooming systems. Implications for the future of scrolling interfaces are substantial, and directions for further work are presented.