RE: freebase parallax: user interface for browsing graphs of data

Hi David,

thanks for your message :)

In the meantime, I took a closer look at parallax. There are many nifty
little UI features I like, such as the "what did just happen?" message,
the label showing the particular related resources in a set of connected
resources, e.g. browsing from people to locations and displaying the
related people for each ___location, although I'm somehow missing an
interaction feature there.

And I'd like to say that in my opinion parallax's core interaction model
of browsing connected *sets* of resources is a incredible important
contribution to the area of graph-based UIs! 

I haven't highlighted that enough in my first message (mainly because I
knew your former prototype of a "nested faceted browser", which has
already demonstrated such an interaction model), but I'd like people to
recognize how important that aspect is for the future of graph-based
data UIs!

> Indeed, initially, the facets and the connections were not
> separated. Then, from user feedback, I split them apart, making those
> two conceptually different features independent and visually separate.

I've been thinking about your point of facets and connections being
conceptually different features. 

In my opinion, they are not conceptually different. I see that it makes
sense (or is even necessary) to make them independent and separate in an
interface with uni-directional filtering, but *conceptually* (including
a possible bidirectional filtering) they are not different. They both
present connected (via a particular property or via a "complex"
function) values/objects, grouped by different dimensions, for a given
set of resources. On top of that, there are interactions with the facets
such as using them as filters or browsing their values. I think, the
need to separate filtering and browsing is a result of limiting to
uni-directional filtering along the graph.

It might make sense to handle value properties (numbers, geolocations,
...) differently than object properties (resources/instances), but as
far as I can see, that wasn't your point. And in your NFB prototype, you
haven't made that distinction. 

So, could you elaborate why you're now making that distinction?

> So if I had it my way, they would be together; but by listening to
> other
> people, they are now separate.

I would love to have a look at that earlier version ;)


Cheers,

Georgi

--
Georgi Kobilarov
Freie Universit�t Berlin
www.georgikobilarov.com 




> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Huynh [mailto:dfhuynh@alum.mit.edu]
> Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2008 6:36 AM
> To: Georgi Kobilarov
> Cc: public-lod@w3.org; semantic-web@w3c.org
> Subject: Re: freebase parallax: user interface for browsing graphs of
> data
> 
> Hi Georgi,
> 
> I'm glad you like it! And I'm glad you said what you didn't like about
> it :-) Indeed, initially, the facets and the connections were not
> separated. Then, from user feedback, I split them apart, making those
> two conceptually different features independent and visually separate.
> So if I had it my way, they would be together; but by listening to
> other
> people, they are now separate. Who knows, by listening to even more
> people, I might put them back together again. :-)
> 
> Which is to say that I'm really not committed to any particular UI
> design. And it's not accurate to say that I don't believe in the
> usability of bidirectional filtering. I do recognize the desire for
> that, but I just didn't think I had the right UI design for it at the
> time, and even now. So I chose not to support bidirectional filtering
> in
> Parallax, at least until I figure out a UI solution that I'm
> comfortable
> with. But you might as well beat me to it :-) And that's great, too!
> The
> more experimentation, the better! Looking forward to see what you come
> up with!
> 
> Cheers!
> 
> David
> 
> Georgi Kobilarov wrote:
> > Hi David,
> >
> > absolute fantastic work!
> >
> > I very much like the way of selecting connection (and filter) from a
> > list grouped by type. Although I'm missing the option to select all
> > resources just based on type (without selecting a particular
> > predicate/relation). E.g. looking at presidents and then selecting
> > ___location instead of having to select ___location (birth) or ___location
> > (death).
> >
> > What I don't like is the separation of instance-based faceted
filters
> > (left hand side) and connections (right hand side).
> > I know that you don't believe in the usability of bidirectional
> > filtering (e.g. starting with movies, pivoting to actors, filtering
> on
> > ___location, and then going *back* to movies to see a filtered set of
> > movies). We've discussed that end of last year on the simile list.
> I'll
> > try to disprove that with a prototype of mine ;)
> >
> > Great to see that you're back with new brilliant UI work again!!
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Georgi
> >
> > --
> > Georgi Kobilarov
> > Freie Universit�t Berlin
> > www.georgikobilarov.com
> >
> >
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: public-lod-request@w3.org [mailto:public-lod-request@w3.org]
> On
> >> Behalf Of David Huynh
> >> Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2008 12:12 AM
> >> To: public-lod@w3.org; semantic-web@w3c.org
> >> Subject: freebase parallax: user interface for browsing graphs of
> data
> >>
> >>
> >> Hi all,
> >>
> >> I've been exploring some user interface ideas for browsing graphs
> (of
> >> data in Freebase) in a user-friendly way, which I think might be
> >> applicable to some of the data that you have. The screencast should
> >> explain:
> >>
> >>     http://mqlx.com/~david/parallax/
> >>
> >> Please let me know what you think!
> >>
> >> Thank you.
> >>
> >> David
> >>
> >
> >

Received on Thursday, 14 August 2008 15:19:37 UTC