The proliferation of the Internet and the increasing popularity of
handheld computing devices pose a challenge: it is difficult to read and
navigate through Web pages displayed on small screens.
Several research teams have addressed the problem with various methods
of zooming in on relevant content from a Web page to make it easier to
view.
Researchers from Microsoft Research, Microsoft Research Asia, and
Tsinghua University in China have devised an interface that goes a step
further by allowing a user to zoom in on relevant content and collapse
irrelevant content with a single pen stroke. The interface could
eventually be included as an extension to small-screen Web browsers.
The scheme solves a problem that can arise when a Web page is simply
shrunk to fit a handheld screen. Content can be rendered too small for the
user to be able to find what she's looking for in order to zoom in on
it.
The researchers' collapse-to-zoom interface allows users to identify
areas of a Web page -- like columns containing menus, archive material or
advertising -- that can be replaced in the small-screen view with thin
placeholders that preserve context.
Users control the system with pen gestures. Dragging the pen diagonally
downwards from right to left collapses all page content in the rectangular
area covered by the pen. The content is replaced by a thin placeholder
that provides context but takes little space. Clicking a placeholder
restores the content.
Dragging the pen diagonally upwards from left to right zooms that area
into a 100-percent-scale reading mode and collapses everything around the
area.
The researchers are scheduled to present the work at the Seventeenth
Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST
2004), in Santa Fe, New Mexico on October 24 to 27.