=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=None
|storemode=property
|title=FunEuler: an Euler Diagram based Interface Enhanced with Region-based Functionalities
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-854/paper8.pdf
|volume=Vol-854
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/diagrams/CordascoCFS12
}}
==FunEuler: an Euler Diagram based Interface Enhanced with Region-based Functionalities==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-854/paper8.pdf
FunEuler: an Euler Diagram based Interface Enhanced
with Region-based Functionalities
Gennaro Cordasco1 , Rosario De Chiara2 , Andrew Fish3? , and Vittorio Scarano2
1
Dipartimento di Psicologia - Seconda Università di Napoli - ITALY
2
ISISLab - Dipartimento di Informatica - Università di Salerno - ITALY
3
School of Computing, Mathematical and Information Sciences, University of Brighton - UK
Abstract. Euler Diagrams are an accessible means of representing non hierar-
chical set-based relationships which have recently been used in resource man-
agement interfaces to facilitate user categorisation. We develop a novel, exten-
sible Euler diagram based interface, called FunEuler, which integrates the con-
cepts of visual classification, spatial arrangements and functional application,
thereby greatly extending the power of such Euler diagram based interfaces by
enabling fast application of a collection of predefined functions to collections of
categorised resources. To demonstrate the principle, we provide several function-
alities such as file zipping or creating playlists within the application, whilst also
providing a mechanism to extend the functionality to facilitate end user develop-
ment. Preliminary user testing suggests that the Euler diagram concept is easily
comprehensible for resource categorisation purposes, the concept and application
of functions can be understood and applied successfully, and that users perceived
the addition of functions increased the usefulness of the application for repetitive
tasks.
1 Introduction
User based resource management tasks such as file categorisation are clearly important
tasks and yet there are serious limitations within current methodologies to assist users.
The traditional hierarchical-based representations are well known to have limitations in
the realms of user categorisation, with difficulties occurring when a user wants to cat-
egorise resources in more than one place, to change the categorisation structure, or to
perform operations on sets of resources that are spread over multiple directories. An al-
ternative methodology is via tagging, and there are methods to handle specific resources
such as mp3’s or particular types of tagged documents, but they can be problematic if
the user wishes to utilise file type based methods for types such as TeX or eps, for in-
stance; also, tag-based methodologies have the downside that documents with missing
or mis-typed tags may be omitted from searches, for example. Some modern operating
systems do allow the use of facilities for both tag and file-type based save, search and
retrieval methods. As a proposed alternative approach, Euler Diagrams are a means of
representing non-hierarchical set-based relationships. They have recently been used in
resource management interfaces to facilitate user categorisation, in [15, 5], for instance.
?
thanks to EPSRC grant EP/J010898/1.
3rd International Workshop on Euler Diagrams, July 2, 2012, Canterbury, UK.
Copyright c 2012 for the individual papers by the papers’ authors. Copying permitted for private and academic purposes.
This volume is published and copyrighted by its editors.
108
Looking from another perspective, we know that the organisation of desktop files or
links into groups can enhance working memory by utilising the spatial information [4,
12, 14]. However, no methodologies exist, to the best of our knowledge, that bring to-
gether the avenues of spatial organisation, categorisation and functional application.
Doing so enables the application of functions to spatially organised (or categorised)
resources, utilising the user’s own spatial memory, whilst also providing the powerful
feature of functional application to sets of the spatially organised resources. Therefore,
we extend the power of an Euler diagram based interface, enabling the application of a
collection of pre-defined functions to collections of categorised resources. The interface
enables the user to quickly create a diagram which captures the categories of interest,
and their intersections, and utilises a drag and drop facility to apply functionalities to
the intersection of categories that are of interest (or to a union of such intersections).
Key ideas. One of the key concepts considered in this paper is the extension of the
concept of a palette, which is an area where collections of resources of interest can
be placed and manipulated, to a spatial palette in which these areas are arranged into
non-hierarchical regions, as defined by an Euler diagram. We have developed an Euler
diagram based interface for user-based categorisation within a non-hierarchical struc-
ture, which also allows users to apply functionalities to collections of resources placed
within that structure. From an application point of view, we provide means to extend
the functionalities in order to encourage end user development and aid future uptake of
the interface.
To provide a concrete motivational example, we present one of the user based sce-
narios that we have developed,set within the mp3 application domain. Then, in Sec-
tion 2, we provide Euler diagram interface background information and describe related
works. The application is described in detail in Section 3, and some preliminary user
testing is reported in Section 4. Subsequent to the user test, we developed a specialisa-
tion of the FunEuler interface within the music domain, providing an indication of how
the interface can be specialised to cater for domain specific applications; this is reported
in Section 5. Conclusions and future work avenues are suggested in Section 6.
User based scenarios. Let us imagine George, a local student DJ, who often creates mu-
sic based gifts for his friends as well as constructing larger distributions. Related tasks
that he performs include: selecting a collection of mp3 tracks and creating a playlist;
naming the playlist and printing out the tracklist as a PDF; zipping a playlist together
with a tracklist, or collections of these; emailing the zip file, or uploading it to a music-
sharing website; creating multiple zip files of playlists, together with tracklists, plus a
global list of the zipped packages in order to distribute more efficiently. By developing
a spatial palette (which is a virtual space in which he can arrange his resources and
have the facilities to apply the relevant functionalities to them) we will assist George
in performing his tasks more efficiently. To gain long term benefits, he would also like
to store his music files in an accessible manner, and related tasks he performs include:
categorising a collection of mp3 files, building a structure to hold them, storing (or tag-
ging) the created zip files appropriately. These tasks are also facilitated via the use of
an Euler diagram based structure and interface.
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2 Euler Diagram interfaces
Venn diagrams [17] are sets of simple closed curves in the plane such that every zone
(a region that is inside a set of those curves and outside the remaining curves) is a non-
empty connected region of the plane. Although there are many variations, especially in
terms of wellformedness condtions (geometric or topological conditions that one can
impose on the diagrams, commonly with the intent of reducing the risks of human mis-
comprehension), the main difference is that for Euler diagrams not all of these zones
have to be present (i.e. non-empty). Commonly these curves are labelled to indicate
the set that they represent, and the diagrammatic systems can be extend to incorporate
more information content. Currently there are many application areas for Euler diagram
based interfaces related to diagrammatic logic and software specification, and set based
data visualisation. Here we present only those interfaces which are directly relevant
to our work, being related to enhancing searching and categorisation tasks. The basic
architecture and insights into FunEuler were described in [3]. In this paper we specialize
FunEuler to a specific context ( managing mp3 files, see Section 5). This provide a
simple scenario of use inspired by real life, with motivation easily comprehended by
users without explanation.
Related Work. A clickable Venn diagram interface was developed in [13] with the idea
of improving web search transparency (the ability to see how sub-queries contribute
to the entire result set of a search). It showed the number of results displayed by each
term or group of terms in the diagram, but was limited to three search terms and the
queries performed upon clicking each region of the diagram were just the conjunc-
tion of the terms of the containing curves. Euler diagram based query interfaces have
also been used in Traditional Library Environments [11] where the curves represent
the query terms, and numbers are used to indicate the number of search term results in
the database returned from the Boolean expression associated to the region, but with a
slightly different meaning: a region which is outside a curve also means that that curves’
search term does not occur in the search results.
Venn diagrams have been used to represent non-hierarchical directories, replac-
ing the traditional hierarchical structure of file systems [15], where diagrams could
be drawn with curves representing categories (or tags) and files could be placed within
more than one directory by utilising a region of overlap of the contours. In [5], an
Euler diagram interface was developed, enabling more general resource management,
together with efficient interpretation algorithms to detect the underlying meaning of the
regions of the diagram. A reification of an Euler diagram based categorisation structure
was integrated with Flickr in [16], utilising the non-hierarchical categorisation struc-
ture.
There has been relatively little actual user testing of the Euler diagram concept, with
the idea generally being taken for granted as being beneficial. In [2], the comprehen-
sion of basic Euler diagrams (without items) that had the same zone sets, but differed
in terms of properties such as jaggedness of curves, was examined, whilst in [6], an
investigation of the effects of varying wellformedness conditions (e.g. of typical condi-
tions are: no concurrency, no more than two curves crossing at a point, etc.) imposed
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on user comprehension and preference was performed. In terms of human reasoning
processes with Euler diagrams, in [18], eye-tracking experiments to investigate user’s
focus changes during reasoning tasks were performed. In [7] an in-depth study was
presented that aims at measuring the influence of the wellformedness conditions on the
comprehension of a diagram; the tests utilised paper based materials.
Background. We view the zones of an Euler diagram as a repository in which to place
resources, such as files and urls, and so the basic notion of Euler diagrams is ex-
tended to capture the placement of items in the diagram; this is similar to unitary alpha
Spider diagrams in the diagrammatic logic context [9]. However, in terms of the se-
mantics assigned within this application area, we simply assign the set of tags in a
zone’s description to that zone, and extend this assignation to any items placed in that
zone. Thus an Euler diagram provides a means to build a non-hierarchical categorisation
structure, and to use it to categorise resources, as in [5].
3 Application description
We describe the FunEuler interface, together with justifications for the design decisions
adopted. In Figure 1 a screenshot of the new FunEuler application developed is shown.
The application is available at [1]. The main portion of the window real estate contains
the diagram itself and this is where the main user-interaction occurs. At the top of the
left hand pane, a list of icons representing the possible operations that the user may
apply (to regions of the diagram) is displayed. Below this operations list there is a spe-
cial area displaying a simple diagram which indicates the Results set. This essentially
depicts the output from the application of the user-selected operations (see Subsection
3.2 for more details). At the top of the interface, a standard menu bar enables the user to
select different interaction modes: modify a curve (Arrow icon), draw new curve (Pen-
cil icon), query the diagram (Eyedropper icon), reset the zoom level (Magnifying glass
icon), tag selected items (Tag icon) and save the diagram (Camera icon).
3.1 Diagram construction and interaction
We allow users to construct a diagram by adding curves, in the form of ellipses, one at
a time by a simple mechanism of left click and drag to specify one axis whilst using
the mouse scroll wheel to specify the other axis (cf. Figure 2 top-left). This allows
fast user construction of the diagrams, as well as a fast interpretation of the zones of
the diagram [5]. The downside is that it slightly restricts the freedom of users who
may wish to draw other types of curves, but the use of more general curves can be
considered as a future extension where the associated trade-offs will be investigated.
However, we emphasise the important point that in this application domain users only
need to construct diagrams which have a superset of their required collection of set
intersections that they need to represent and so concerns relating to the complexity of
diagram construction [8] are reduced.
At the moment of creation of a curve, the system automatically assigns a random
colour to the curves, as well as a choice of set name (according to a predetermined
sequence), but these names and colours can be then edited by the user. This facilitates
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Fig. 1. A screenshot of the FunEuler interface.
rapid user construction of diagrams via ellipse addition without the interruption of nam-
ing and choosing a colour for each curve, which could interrupt the flow of creation.
The collection of parameters associated to each ellipse are easily accessible through a
pop-up menu via a right-click action (cf. Figure 2 top-middle). Existing ellipses can be
quickly modified by translation, rotation or by altering the size of its axes.
Although the general advice would be that users constructing categorisation dia-
grams should keep them as simple as possible, human readers of diagrams may have
difficulties identifying zones correctly if complex diagrams which have small zones
with a lot of bounding curves, or if zones are complex spatial regions (e.g. in the gen-
eral case they can be disconnected or non-simple regions) are constructed. Therefore,
we assist in helping a reader to understand a categorisation by providing the possibility
of querying a zone: by selecting a point p within any zone using the eyedropper the
entire zone containing p is highlighted, and the zone descriptor displayed in the status
bar (cf. Figure 2 top-right).
To aid user navigation within larger diagrams, we allow the usual scrollbars for
horizontal and vertical directions, but we also provide spatial zooming: this is accessed
via a select zoom option and mouse wheel scroll in and out, providing a larger working
area when needed. This facility is likely to be useful in cases when users are working
with a lot of categories, or when there are a large number of items in an intersection of
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categories and one needs to enlarge the working space (i.e. to enlarge the region that is
the spatial palette under consideration).
Item management. We utilise a drag and drop protocol for resource classification, sim-
ply placing items within the relevant region of the diagram. Item properties are visual-
ized through tool tip text while the status bar, at the bottom of the interface, provides its
current categorization (cf. Figure 2 bottom-left). Each item can be interactively reposi-
tioned and consequently re-classified. In order to not restrict the selection (and hence
the functional application) of items to those sets of items corresponding to entire zones
we also allow the selection of multiple items via a common box-selection (cf. Figure 2
bottom-middle/right).
Fig. 2. A sequence of screenshots demonstrating FunEuler basic functionalities.
3.2 Operational functionality
At the core of the FunEuler functionalities is the ability to select and apply one, or more,
operations to regions of the diagram. Performing operations on zones uses the familiar
drag and drop: the user simply drags the operation icon onto the desired zone of the
diagram. To perform operations on multiple zones (or similarly for other selected sets
of items), the user must first perform a selection (by using the eyedropper) on all of the
zones that he/she wishes to apply the operation to, and then drag the operation icon onto
one of the selected zones.
To demonstrate the principal of functional application within the Euler diagram
structure we developed several operations including: zip (which individually zips all
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files in a region, creating a collection of zip files), ZipToSingle (which zips all files in
a region to a single zip file), createplaylist (which creates a playlist when applied to a
collection of mp3 files) and search (described below).
Tagging and Searching. The Euler diagram based interfaces commonly have a means
to export to a tree based file system using conjunction of categories as node labels.
However, we provide some specialised tag-based support for this interface. In general
item tagging can be performed by adding information “inside” the item (e.g. utilising
the genre field for mp3 files or tag data for office documents) or “outside” by utilising
an item tagging database.
Now, if diagrams contain a large number of items then the user’s ability to find and
use specific items may be adversely affected. Therefore we offer the user the option of
hiding tagged items, so that a user can hide items classified within the zone, thereby
controlling what is actually visualised. Then, users can display tagged items by using
a specific Search functionality, which displays all of the items whose tags correspond
to the appropriate intersection of categories. We have developed a simple yet powerful
Search functionality that relies on the Windows Search feature (which was introduced
with Windows Vista/Seven) which allows the user to query, using an SQL-like lan-
guage, the SistemIndex catalogue of Windows machines; since we offer support for
this kind of operation we have access to functions for searching and modifying tags.
Developing new functions. FunEuler is designed to let the user to program to extend its
functionalities. The very essence of the operational application within the interface is
allowing users to assemble operations and this could be viewed as building a simple pro-
gram or macro to support their tasks. The interface allows programmers to develop new
operations by using their favourite scripting language (e.g. php, python, etc). Indeed,
FunEuler provides access to two lists for the items and the zones that the operation is to
be applied to: one list containing the pathnames of the items and the zones they belong
to, and another list reporting the zones and the items that each zone contains. Each op-
eration can produce zero, one or several files as result. As an example, the zip file
operation produces a zipped file for each pathname in the input list, whilst the zip to
single file operation produces one single zip file containing all of the files of the
input list. On the other hand, the send by email operation does not produce any re-
sult files. Independent of the number of files produced the Results pane supports their
representation in a special single-curve ED, where file icons are automatically placed
within the curve representing the results set.
Closure. The application of an operation to a region of a diagram causes the generation
of a new diagram in the Results part of the application window, and since the Results set
is a diagram in its own right, operations can be applied to it generating a new Results
diagram arising from the sequential application of the selected operations. Thus we
can view the class of diagrams in FunEuler as being closed under the application of
operations. Figure 3 shows the operations’ icons within the Results set; in the left hand
side the items are the result of one operation (create playlist on mp3s) whilst on the
right they are the result of two operations (create playlist followed by zip). Subsequent
operation icons are added consecutively, above the previous operations’ icon. Due to
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the closure we allow the user to drag the Results set onto the main diagram pane. This
permits the user to categorise items which are the result of one of more operations
alongside the original items that were already displayed in their diagram.
Fig. 3. Two screenshots showing the results of operations: (left) A single operation, Create
Playlist; (right) Two sequential operations, Create Playlist and Zip.
3.3 Comparison with other tools
We decided not to try to compare the Euler diagram concept directly with other ex-
isting methodologies, because it is difficult to determine a suitable comparator and it
also seems likely that tasks set would have a good chance of being biased towards one
methodology. For example, a comparison of the Euler diagram concept for categorisa-
tion/resource management versus a hierarchical structure is likely to favour the Euler
diagram concept for tasks that utilise overlapping categories, providing the underly-
ing concept of Euler diagrams is not challenging for users. Furthermore, knowledge
of users’ level of comprehension and abilities with this underlying concept is a neces-
sary precursor to allow us to accurately examine their abilities with the concept of the
application of functions to regions of the diagram.
4 User testing
We decided to test users’ conceptual understanding of the basic concept of Euler di-
agrams within this domain, together with their perception of its utility. Since we also
wish to know if users can understand and apply functions, we also perform a basic test
of this, keeping the tasks fairly straightforward in order to test the basic concept, with
significantly more complex operational tasks being planned for future studies (as well
as a more direct comparison within a more specific domain application that we have
subsequently developed and is described in Section 5).
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We test the concepts within the FunEuler tool we developed, which means we can-
not really separate the conceptual effects of the actual representation from the effects
of the particular tool, since the tool may restrict a user’s actions and thus alter their be-
haviour; to acknowledge this, at the end of the tests, we asked users if they were aware
of anything they would have liked to have been able to do but could not, either because
of the representation or because of the tool. However, we believe these effect of the
tool on the judgement of the representation will be minor in this instance due to the
simplicity of the notation and the interface, whilst the tool based approach brings many
benefits in that we can trace with the behaviour of the users in detail (e.g. the number
of clicks, the number of corrections made during the test, etc. . . ).
We describe our experimental design, some of the actual tasks set to the users, and
a summary of the results of the user tests. We provide very high-level broad hypothe-
ses below, but note that we are actually testing a restricted class of fairly small simple
diagrams (no more than five curves or twelve zones), and as always any statement of
results must really be restricted to the diagrams used and the tasks set within the exper-
iment; we take this restriction for granted in the following. However, we are provided
with an indication of the potential usefulness of the interface.
Hypotheses.
H1 Users can easily comprehend, create and modify Euler diagram based categorisa-
tions using FunEuler.
H2 Users are able to utilise the application of functions using FunEuler effectively.
H3 Users perceive FunEuler as an application they would find useful to improve their
efficiency of operations.
The intention of the user testing is to investigate Hypotheses H1 and H2 using
quantitative methods, by the recording of correctness of task completion, and efficiency
in terms of timing, whilst we investigate the subjective questions related to Hypotheses
H3 using qualitative methods. In order to test these hypothesis we carried out two dif-
ferent test sessions: test session 1 focused on H1 and H3, whilst test session 2 focussed
on H2 and H3.
Participants. We recruited 19 volunteers, twelve of whom were male, aged between
21 and 31, who were a mix of undergraduate Computer Science students and Ph.D.
students at the ISISLab, Università di Salerno. Three of these participated in pilot testing
of successive versions of the experimental materials (e.g. the tasks and questionnaire).
This allowed us to thoroughly check the experimental set-up, altering the language
and providing more clarification of the tasks where necessary. The remaining sixteen
participants were equally divided between two tests sessions (each of which were of
approximately 25 minutes duration).
Test setting. In terms of the test conditions, both tests were carried out in a laboratory
setting where each user had a dedicated laptop. Each test was explained orally and
guided via a printed handout offering a short description of each of the stages. At the
end of each step the user was asked to take a snapshot of the diagram, by clicking a
special button in the application, in order to record both the duration of the last task and
116
the current state of the diagram. At the end of each session, the users were asked to fill in
a questionnaire, consisting of 26 questions divided into 6 sections: general application,
set creation, set manipulation, item categorisation, executing operations and perceived
effectiveness of FunEuler in accelerating daily activities. These were measured on a
Likert scale with score range [−3, 3].
Experimental design. In the first test session each user was provided with a sequence of
five stages, with each stage describing a basic concept or functionality of FunEuler. A
task was presented to the user which required the utilisation of that functionality in order
to modify the diagram, for instance. Thus we could check the users’ comprehension of
the induced modifications. Sample tasks included: reproduce a given diagram presented
on paper utilising the tool, and to count the number of zones into which a given set was
split. For each stage we recorded the completion time and we measured the percentage
of the tasks performed correctly (e.g. the number of sets that were correctly represented,
or the number of zone sets that were correctly counted). The second test session was
aimed at assessing users’ ease of comprehension and their application of operations to
zones containing items. This test session consisted of three stages. The first stage was
to perform item tagging in the similar manner to that of the first test, whilst the next two
stages focussed on the application of a zip operation to certain zones of the diagram.
We provide a brief description of the tasks below.
User Tasks. We consider user tasks divided into the following categories: Interpretation
(given a diagram interpret its meaning), Development (given some categories and items
construct a diagram) and Functional (utilise diagrams, applying functions). Note that,
as mentioned earlier, we had decided it was a priority to test the fundamental aspects of
the concept and the application and to leave the complex task categories like end-user
development to a future date.
Table 1 show the basic results related to the tasks that comprised the two test ses-
sions. We briefly describe the tasks and the criteria that we adopted to evaluate their
execution, where necessary:
Diagram Construction To create a diagram containing certain specified zones. The
presence of the given zones is checked.
Diagram Modification To modify a diagram by altering the sets represented (i.e mod-
ifying the curves which changes the set of zones present).
Zone Counting To count the number of zones contained belonging to certain set (i.e
contained within a certain region).
Diagram Reproduction To reproduce a printed diagram. The presence of the given
zones is checked.
Item Tagging To place eleven files onto zones of a given diagram. Each file is named
according to the zone it should be placed in. The reason for this was to mimic the
pre-existing knowledge of file content that a user would normally have at the time
at which he/she is about to categorise a file. The correctness of the placement is
checked.
Zip Items in one zone To apply the zip operation to files belonging to one zone which
represented the intersection of two sets.
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Zip Items in multiple zones To apply the zip operation to files belonging to multiple
zones from a single set.
Fig. 4. Screenshots from one of the tests
In Figure 4 we present screenshots of diagrams constructed by users of the test. In
the upper part the user has reproduced the diagram in Figure 1: on the left the diagram
has no items, whilst on the right she had categorized 12 files, as requested, and a single
file was misplaced (placed in E instead of D). In the lower part of the same figure we
show a diagram used to categorize mp3 files.
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4.1 Results
In Table 1 we present a summary of the results of the two test session that were carried
out. Within the context of the diagrams and tasks used, Hypothesis H1 is supported by
a high score on the tasks of Diagram Construction, Diagram Modification and Diagram
Reproduction. Hypothesis H2 has been tested in tasks Zip Items in one zone and Zip
items in multiple zones which also report ≈ 100% success rates.
Table 1. Tests results: (left) first test; (right) second test.
By comparing the two tests session results we could evaluate how the use of op-
erations influenced the users’ perceived usefulness of FunEuler: the average score was
0.13 for participants of the first test session but 1.88 for participants of the second test
session (the score range is [−3, 3]). A one-way ANOVA was calculated on participants’
ratings of the question “is FunEuler useful for repetitive tasks ?”. The analysis was
significant, with F1,14 = 5.0, p = 0.04.
The accurate responses to the tasks indicate that the underlying conceptual use of
Euler diagrams for categorisation was easily grasped by users. The functional applica-
tion utilising this structure did not appear to be a large conceptual step for them. The
perceived usefulness of the FunEuler application was significantly enhanced by the util-
ity for functional application. Users also reported that they would use the application
in the future, suggesting areas where it would be useful, and some even stated that they
would be interested in developing the associated functionality themselves.
5 FunEuler specialisation with mp3 files
FunEuler can be viewed as a flexible framework on which to host services based upon an
Euler Diagram representation of information. As an example of this flexibility, and as an
extension of FunEuler following the experiment, we developed a prototypical mp3 files
management system. Since the music domain is of interest to the student participants,
and since there are applications available to deal with mp3 files, we focussed on this
specialisation area.
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The diffusion of digital music has radically changed the manner of listening to
music for the average user, and one fundamental step toward this evolution is the
widespread adoption of the mp3 file format [10]. mp3 files are commonly created by the
so-called ripping of CDs: CD audio tracks are digitally recorded by using a computer
and compressing them into an mp3 file. This process is straightforward and a number
of applications can perform it as well as attempt to fill the ID3 fields (identification for
mp3) by accessing online archives (e.g. http://www.gracenote.com). A sec-
ond, and perhaps the most relevant, method to obtain mp3 files is by buying them from
online music stores (e.g. iTunes, Amazon), which usually provide correctly filled in ID3
fields. Despite these two widespread methods to obtain music, there is a large number
of mp3 files that are not tagged at all: we sampled more than 8000 mp3 files available
on our students’ accounts, by asking them to run a small application that calculates a
statistic on the content of the field Genre in each mp3, and we found that around 75%
of them had empty or bad (containing random characters) Genre tags. Thus we inferred
that the Genre field would be a suitable testbed for FunEuler tagging capabilities.
New functionalities. We implemented the operations of searching mp3 files by genre
and tagging mp3 files. By combining the use of these operations it is possible to cate-
gorise large archives of mp3 files using few mouse clicks. The idea is to implement a
cycle of search-categorise-tag: search for untagged files, categorise them by dragging
and dropping their icons onto the zone representing the correct genre, and tag files by
applying the tagging operation. The search for untagged mp3 files can be obtained by
applying the Search operation to the “Universe” zone, and in this specialisation, the
number of untagged mp3 files is displayed within the zone; clicking on the number
causes a window containing the list of files to be opened. It is now possible to drag and
drop the mp3 file icons onto the desired zone of the diagram in order to categorise them.
The tagging operation assigns the set of tags associated with the zone containing a file
to the Genre ID3 field.
6 Conclusion & Future works
We have brought together concepts of visual non-hierarchical classification, spatial
arrangements and functional application in the development of a novel Euler diagram
based interface called FunEuler. The prototype application developed was utilised in
user testing, which investigated if the Euler diagram concept was easily comprehensible
for resource categorisation purposes, if the application of functions could be performed
successfully, and if users perceived this idea to be useful either in its current state or
together with future functionalities. The results were extremely encouraging.
The FunEuler interface also provides a firm base for future developments in many
directions. For example, we could extend the power of the labels of curves, allowing
a mixture of user defined categories (or tags) such as “Computational Geometry” and
pre-determined types such as TeX files, or to allow functional labels such as “Before
this year”, which would filter for files based on the timestamp. Allowing any Boolean
expressions on labels would assist with scalability of the diagrams since more informa-
tion could be encapsulated in the labels instead of via the addition of more curves. A
useful option could be to allow users to select from a set of curves in a library (e.g. files
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modified yesterday, PDF files, etc). In terms of repetitive tasks, we observe that choos-
ing specific groups of contacts for sending email to is a task that a user often needs to
perform several times a day, and so enabling a fast mechanism to realise group selec-
tion as well as to facilitate repeated usage of related group selections could be of great
assistance to end users, and we will extend an Euler diagram interface for such tasks.
Furthermore, there are many potential application areas within which the developed
concept and interface could be applied. For instance, we briefly reported on the speciali-
sation for mp3 files and we plan to run future user testing within this domain. Secondly,
in the workflow application area (e.g. see Alfresco), we could allow the drag and drop
of a TeX document into a particular region, automate the running of macros such as
PDFTeX and observe the results appear automatically elsewhere as an item in the PDF
category. Users could then understand and track workflow involving multiple people
on different systems. Thirdly, we will consider Euler Diagram Programming, where we
will assign behaviour to curves instead of to the zones. For example one might have
“Hotel” and “Food” categories with different “print” functions but their intersection
might make use of both functionalities, although one must deal with the usual multiple
inheritance problems, of course (e.g. we do not want to print off a date twice due to its
appearance in each categories’ behaviour).
One weakness of the representation is the need for continuous navigation in order to
find specific sets/regions, particularly in larger diagrams. Whilst the representation may
be an effective way of leveraging the spatial memory of the user, performance of actions
by hand without specific automated support from the application may be annoying. A
deeper investigation into the advantages and disadvantages of the representation, and
exploration of potential tasks and application areas is a next step.
A wider investigation of the usability of EDs in a general context is required. There
are many unanswered questions, such as: how large (in terms of the number of zones
and number of curves) can a diagram be to be effectively manipulated by an average
user; how well does the representation scale with the increasing of the complexity of the
diagram; what effect does the representation have on user behaviour? Such questions
require specifically targeted testing.
Acknowledgments. We wish to thank the anonymous reviewers for their useful
comments, particularly reviewer number 3 whose insightful comments will be invalu-
able in future works.
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