Investigating the Effect of Visualization on User Performance of Information Systems

This research investigated if and how users using an information visualization system perform differently from those using a traditional information retrieval system. A between-subjects experiment was conducted involving 32 subjects. One group of subjects engaged the visually oriented CiteSpace system; the remaining subjects searched the textual-based Web of Science system. The results indicated that subjects using the CiteSpace system spent significantly less time, felt significantly more satisfied, and performed significantly fewer mouse clicks than those using the Web of Science system. These results indicate that it would be helpful to consider different visualization methods to represent and organize information in the design of information retrieval systems.

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