Sketches and prototypes for the Orlando Six Degrees of Separation Project.

Sketches and prototypes for the Orlando Six Degrees of Separation Project

Orlando linksThis is the published interface, which gives a representation of all the links to a particular author from the other entries in the system.

You can see what the front pages of entries look like without a login, e.g. at http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=barban for the entry whose links screen you see here

If you have a U of A CCID, you can access the entire site through the library Databases collection

How Do You Visualize a Million Links?

Orlando: 1200+ biocritical author entries with semantic markup (for names, places, organizations etc. but also intertextuality, politics, marriage, reception) • Linking was always a central theme in Orlando• The published interface includes dedicated links screens• There is greater potential in the textbase than the current interface supports

• e.g. Barbauld mentioned in context of reception in 12 other entries

http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=barban



Breadboard design: searchThis is a sketch for an

interface that has yet to be implemented, but one that we would like to have you work on. Names of authors are listed in overview of contents.


• People found it an exciting way to view and browse information• Some preferred more open searching, others searching with a particular destination in mind• Scope of what’s offered was unclear, title gives no hint to content

Breadboard design: resultsThis is the interface with the associations for one author revealed after the user has clicked on an author’s name; the idea is that these associations could then be faceted by the kinds of links involved


• Attractive• People liked the multiple sorting and refining strategies• They liked keeping the homepage in the background and viewing search results in foreground• They wanted a way of prioritizing information• Found it hard to skim results–better organization needed

Web prototype we’ve implemented: searchWe’d want to revise this to address some of the current problems we’ve identified in the testing. I don’t think this is working through the API at the moment, so work on it might need to wait until Jeff is back.


• Confusing choices: Link By, Proximity, Exclusion, Restriction• People wanted more combinations of scope options• They preferred typing names in natural order and receiving partial matches

the prototype we’ve implemented: partial namesThe notes below these slides show comments summarizing user testing, and we’d want to address them in the revisions


• However, partial matches proved to be confusing—had a search already run?

2-point prototype: indirect resultsThis is the current results screen


Omits semantic context but provides specifics of link (reverse of published Links screen) • People wanted control over order or organization of results• They wanted to identify connections between more than people• They wanted to know the number, kind, and strength of results• They wanted to modify search criteria on the results page• Indirect relationships are visually easier to understand than direct relationships

2-point prototype: direct resultsThis too is the current results screen for a direct connection


• Conceptually, what is a direct relationship, and how do we visually represent it?•Case 1 : Hester Piozzi and Frances Burney co-occur in Henrietta Maria Bowdler’s entry• Case 2: Hester Thrale is mentioned in Frances Burney’s entry

Tagcloud with sequence as a factorThis is one sketch towards improving the results sceen


Semantic context and specifics of link relationship both omitted• Many liked it as a summary view and outline• Legend needs improvement: “mentioned” and “where” are undefined, relevance of font size unknown• Most people could not tell the difference between a node and a link

Tagcloud with sequence removedThis is a another candidate


• More visually attractive and simple• Hard to interpret size, type, and colour of font—legend required• People correctly understood size as indicator of link significance but could only guess as to what that significance was• Wanted the representation to show the kind/type of relationship (semantic markup)

Cityscape (horizontal)This is the germ of another prototype that would represent the authors in this kind of bar graph form, with each bar representing the number of links associated with that author.


• Orlando biocritical entries appear as towers (with size indicating degree of interlinking overall) and links as a cloud of dots• Timeline provides selection by date range

Cityscape (vertical)Here’s a vertical version of

the same.


• Author names are easier to read• Fewer author names displayed per screen

Graphical representation of nodes and edgesThis is a prototype that is going ahead in Ontario, not one of the ones we’d have you working on immediately, but included here just so you know that it exists.


• The current state of the art in visualizing links: e.g. dominant approach to visualizing semantic web information, though there are some other approaches, such as clustering, to somewhat similar problems• Doesn’t scale well (16.7M edges in full graph linking via people, orgs, places, titles)• Improved by use of labels, interactivity, colour (here warm colours signify literary relations, cool social ones, related to Heath’s Book of Beauty)• Surprisingly, not immediately rejected by literary scholars who see it

• Prototype still in development; user testing pending

Sketches and prototypes for the Orlando Six Degrees of Separation Project.

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