Elastic Zooming: Enabling a Single User Interface for the Multi-Device World

The present paper describes a novel information visualization technique that allows for the manifestation of the Elastic Zoomable User Interface (EZUI). With this information visual- ization technique and interface, objects may fill the entire available real estate on a viewing window when zoom transformation happens while maintaining a natural feel of zoom. Thus, this information visualization not only changes the dimensions of the layout and its objects when zoom happens, but the aspect ratios of those elements as well. This allows the user to interact with displayed information in a fully consistent way from smartwatch-sized screens to whiteboard-sized screens. A review of past work is described, from definitions to studies, to provide a background of Zoomable User Interfaces (ZUIs). The Elastic Zoom visualiza- tion technique, including orientation and navigation, are described in detail. Based on this, a Pragmatic User Interface Taxonomy is also provided to categorize modern graphical in- terfaces. Further, two example applications using the Elastic Zoom visualization technique are provided, one with an actual prototype and another with static mock-ups. Evaluations are provided through a summative self assessment and an empirical user study. The study participants assessed the Elastic Zooming in an indirect interaction method through the pro- posed use case and its prototype alongside other traditional user interfaces. The empirical user study was conducted with an online survey on a crowdsourcing website involving 48 participants who provided quantitative and qualitative explanations about their preferences