Effect of diagram fan-out, layout, and existence of graphical components on the Mental Image Quality of Tree Diagrams, an Empirical Study

Tree diagrams are commonly used to present hierarchal information in a wide variety of fields. The experiments described in this paper are a part of a series of preliminary experiments aimed at assessing the effect different factors have on mental image quality (MIQ) of tree diagrams. Our ultimate goal is to contribute to a better understanding of how humans react to different characteristics of diagrammatic representations. In this paper we present five experiments that were held to assess the effect of three independent variables (diagram fan-out, diagram layout, and existence of graphical components) on MIQ of tree diagrams. We also investigated the effect inspection time has on the way the dependent variables react to changes In the first two independent variables.