Twist And Learn: Interface Learning In 3dof Exploration Of 3d Scatterplots

The increasing availability of 3D interfaces brings promise of improved user experience in diverse areas. Our study focuses on visual analytics, testing whether 3D interactivity improves performance in a visual data exploration task. Specifically, we compared scene rotation around vertical axis to a full 3D rotation using a InterSense IS-900 3D controller, in a task involving trivariate trend detection in a 3D scatterplot. We found that, while 3D rotation leads to slower performance, previous exposure to single-axis rotation removes that difference. This shows that an interactive 3D scatterplot can be an effective visual exploration technique for detecting trivariate patterns in the data, and highlights the role of interface learning in design and assessment of novel interfaces.