Interaction Techniques for Exploratory Data Visualization on Mobile Devices

TL;DR

The paper addresses the challenge of enabling exploratory data visualization on mobile devices by identifying four design principles—leverage ubiquitous modalities, prioritize discoverability, enable rapid in-context exploration, and promote graceful recovery—and proposing thirteen touch- and motion-based interactions that generalize across common visualizations. These interactions were implemented in a testbed and evaluated through a formative study with twelve participants across three chart types, revealing preferences for single-touch, portrait-oriented control, an effective focus mechanism to zoom to selections, and cautious use of motion primarily for reset. The findings yield design considerations around precise inspection, efficient navigation, and interaction discoverability, with insights on orientation, fat-fingering, and user comfort. Overall, the work contributes a generalizable mobile interaction vocabulary for exploratory data visualization that supports rapid, context-rich exploration and error recovery, informing practical mobile visualization design and future research on mobile-desktop hand-offs and learnability.

Abstract

The ubiquity and on-the-go availability of mobile devices makes them central to many tasks such as interpersonal communication and media consumption. However, despite the potential of mobile devices for on-demand exploratory data visualization, existing mobile interactions are difficult, often using highly custom interactions, complex gestures, or multi-modal input. We synthesize limitations from the literature and outline four motivating principles for improved mobile interaction: leverage ubiquitous modalities, prioritize discoverability, enable rapid in-context data exploration, and promote graceful recovery. We then contribute thirteen interaction candidates and conduct a formative study with twelve participants who experienced our interactions in a testbed prototype. Based on these interviews, we discuss design considerations and tradeoffs from four main themes: precise and rapid inspection, focused navigation, single-touch and fixed orientation interaction, and judicious use of motion.