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If your computer screen is covered with Web browser windows to let you monitor the news headlines, weather, traffic and stock market while you work, you might be suffering from information overload.
Computing researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta have created a prototype software program to move such information from the center of your awareness to the periphery. Called InfoCanvas, the program creates an abstract pictorial representation of information people want to monitor. The canvas is displayed on a separate monitor and looks much like a painting hung on a wall or a picture frame set on a desk.
"We wanted people to be able to keep up with the stuff that's important to them, but not have it get in the way," said John Stasko, an associate professor of computing at Georgia Tech. "And the art angle is designed to enhance their environment or make it more aesthetically pleasing."
"This project gets at the idea that a picture is worth a thousand words," Stasko explained. Ultimately, a proof-of-concept version of InfoCanvas -- funded by a National Science Foundation grant to Stasko -- will allow users to design the entire scene from the background to every graphical image representing different data elements. Right now, researchers manually code these elements into the software prototype after trial users select their graphics from paper cutouts.
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