Liquid 2D scatter space for file system browsing

This (video-) paper describes a user interface concept, which facilitates multidimensional visual queries, filtering and browsing of the file system at the same time by means of the "liquid scatter space" (LSS) concept (Waldeck, 2004). The UI concept is based on an advanced star field display (Ahlberg & Shneiderman, 1994) using liquid browsing (Waldeck, 2004) and selection based (sketch-) queries. It allows realtime search and browsing at the same time (integrated into one single user interface) and can visualize the most important file system meta data dimensions simultaneously: 1. filename; 2. creation/modification date; 3. filesize; 4. filetype; and 5. label. LSS provides very fast and easy visual data mining possibilities for the desktop and makes it possible to perceive complex dependencies between the most important file system meta data properties at a glance. It also overcomes the "hidden-deep-down-in-hierarchy-structures"-problem by making it possible to use folders for structuring but not being bound to them. This paper focuses on visual design and interaction aspects and emphasizes the importance of paying regard to visual interactive details for information visualization and interaction interfaces and the need of making it easy to use.