fishnet

The fishnet web browser fits web pages of any length into the browser window by vertically compressing peripheral content. Color-coded popouts keep search terms readable while they are located in one of the context areas. (In this figure, two of the popouts “Seattle” and “UPDATE” are highlighted using large round callouts for better readability. The callouts are not part of  fishnet.)

Fishnet is a web browser that always displays web pages in their entirety, independent of their size. Fishnet accomplishes this by using a fisheye view, i.e. by showing a focus region at readable scale while spatially compressing page content above and below that region. Fishnet offers search term highlighting, and assures that those terms are readable by using “popouts”. This allows users to visually scan search results within the entire page without scrolling. In our user study, fishnet outperformed a regular web browser that offered the same search term highlighting but no fisheye effect.

Fishnet is a joint project with my summer 2003 intern Bongshin Lee.