Show Me the Invisible: Visualizing Hidden Content.

Abstract

Content on computer screens is often inaccessible to users because it is hidden, e.g., occluded by other windows, outside the viewport, or overlooked. In search tasks, the efficient retrieval of sought content is important. Current software, however, only provides limited support to visualize hidden occurrences and rarely supports search synchronization crossing application boundaries. To remedy this situation, we introduce two novel visualization methods to guide users to hidden content. Our first method generates awareness for occluded or out-of-viewport content using see-through visualization. For content that is either outside the screen's viewport or for data sources not opened at all, our second method shows off-screen indicators and an on-demand smart preview. To reduce the chances of overlooking content, we use visual links, i.e., visible edges, to connect the visible content or the visible representations of the hidden content. We show the validity of our methods in a user study, which demonstrates that our technique enables a faster localization of hidden content compared to traditional search functionality and thereby assists users in information retrieval tasks.