Yes, it's a degree of interest interaction. There have been various attempts to implement this DOI idea since it came out, and I'm pointing to this one as a rather novel implementation, that may overcome some of the usability issues seen with hyperbolic trees, etc.

I would definitely test its usability with a taxonomic tree data set and some "normal folk" before advocating it as the ultimate solution for an EOL project. Denise Green and I did these types of usability tests on three interactive tree presentations available in 2005, providing something of a baseline against which this particular interaction style might be judged.  See:  http://groups.sims.berkeley.edu/TOL/docs/GreenShapleyTOLFinalReport.pdf  (4 MB)

-R.

On 9/13/07, Richard Pyle <deepreef@bishopmuseum.org> wrote:

> As Rod suggested, this is pretty old news.

This begs the question:  has this style of user-interface failed to catch on
more widely because of:

1) Technological limitations;
2) Insufficient creativity and inspiration; or
3) Insufficient usability?

I'm tempted to eliminate #3 on the grounds that I don't think this style of
UI has been widespread enough to have been subjected to, and then failed,
some sort of usability meta-experiment.

This is not to say that it won't ultimately fail such a meta-experiment --
just that it hasn't really had a chance to fail it yet.

Rich


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