SILVA FILHO, J. B.; http://lattes.cnpq.br/8539855409002758; SILVA FILHO, José Bezerra da.
Resumo:
This Thesis investigates the efficacy of Continuous Zooming as a new interface
mechanism for working with electronic text in general, and minimizing disorientation
effects in particular. Three experiments were conducted by comparing variations of
jump and zoom interfaces for textual material segmented into different levels of detail
ranging from title and section headings to full text detials. The first experiment
compared user performance (text comprehension and task completion time), perceived
disorientation, and satisfaction for 36 subjects across the two interface conditions. Subjects
were able to quickly learn to use the zooming mechanism and reported high levels
of satisfaction in interviews. In the second experiment, a third, hybrid jump and zoom
condition was also included and spatial abilities of the 15 subjects were taken into
consideration. These studies investigated advantages of continuous zooming such as
ease of gaining an overall macro view of a text and personal control of text size, as well
as new interface challenges and design parameters such as zoom speed control and font
size ratios across different levels of text representation. In the third user study five font
ratio variations across three levels of text representation (title and section heading, key
sentence for each paragraph, and the remaining texts) were compared. These studies
investigate the efficacy of continuous zooming as a new display control mechanism for
text browsing and reading.