Panning interaction development for citation network visualization

A citation network visualizer tool has been developed in an earlier research. The tool is able to visualize multiple data at the same coordinates. However, all of the citation network data are displayed in a full view that is limited to the cartesian coordinates system. This will make citation network be more complex when the number of citation network data to be visualized increases. A complex citation network will make it difficult to users to get focus on data or specific part of the citation network. Therefore, an interaction or navigation such as panning is needed to help users get the desired focus by changing the view of citation network. Unfortunately, the existing tool does not provide the panning feature. In this paper, we present a panning method to handle the problems. Panning techniques used to deal with these problems are direct repositioning (grab and drag), navigation window, and cartesian distortion. Users can perform panning in all directions (freeform panning) with the three of panning techniques. The results of usability testing involving ten users show that software can achieve considered usability and user experience goals. Usability goals that can be achieved are effectiveness, learnability, efficiency, and utility. While the user experience goals are helpful, satisfying, enjoyable, and fun.