Leider ist dieser Inhalt nur in Englisch verfügbar. Aus praktischen Gründen wird der Inhalt unten in dieser Sprache angezeigt.

I. Overview

This thesis investigates yet unexplored potentials of mobile devices for interacting with information visualizations (InfoVis). The work applied an exploratory approach and developed a range of techniques and studies that contribute to the understanding of how mobile devices can be used not only for typical personal visualization but also in more professional settings as part of novel and beyond-the-desktop InfoVis environments.

The work is based on four realized projects that can be connected by the following research objectives:

  1. Facilitating data visualization beyond the casual exploration of personal data;
  2. Integrating mobile devices in multi-device settings for InfoVis; and
  3. Exploiting the mobility and spatiality of mobile devices for InfoVis

In order to address these objective, the research mainly concentrated on interactions with multivariate data represented in multiple coordinated views (MCV). It also considered two different device settings: (Mobile devices on a table) One part of the research investigated scenarios where one or more people sit at a regular table and analyze data in MCV that are distributed across several mobile devices. (Mobile devices in 3D space)The other part focused on scenarios in which a wall-sized display shows large-scale MCV and mobile devices enable interactions with the visualizations from varying positions and distances. The two settings allowed to study different purposes and roles of mobile devices during data exploration. Finally, the work examined different spatial device interactions. This included placing and organizing multiple mobile devices in meaningful spatial arrangements and also pointing interaction that combines touch and spatial device input.

II. The Thesis Document

The dissertation is publicly available via Qucosa.

  • Exploring Mobile Device Interactions for Information Visualization

    Exploring Mobile Device Interactions for Information Visualization

    Langner, R.

    Dissertation.Technische Universität Dresden.Qucosa,2025.

    @phdthesis{Langner-2025-ExploringMobileDev,
       author = {Ricardo Langner},
       title = {Exploring Mobile Device Interactions for Information Visualization},
       year = {2025},
       month = {1},
       numpages = {287},
       url = {https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:bsz:14-qucosa2-949500},
       publisher = {Qucosa},
       address = {Dresden},
       keywords = {Human-Computer Interaction, Information Visualization, Mobile Devices, Visual Data Analysis, Multiple Coordinated Views}
    }

    Weitere Materialien

    Dokument


III. Research Projects

VisTiles: Combination & Spatial Arrangement of Mobile Devices

With VisTiles, the work contributed a conceptual framework that uses a set of mobile devices to distribute and coordinate several visualization views for the exploration of multivariate data. In contrast to desktop-based interfaces for InfoVis, mobile devices offer the potential to provide a dynamic and user-defined interface supporting co-located collaborative data exploration with different individual workflows.

Eight different visualization adaptation on mobile devices: alignment, UI offloading, display extension, distributed visualizations, rearrangement, filter-by-viewport, overview & detail, and manage adaptations
Examplary visualization and interaction concepts for the combination of multiple mobile devices.

Further Information

See the separate project website for further photos and videos of the VisTiles project.

  • Demonstrating VisTiles: Visual Data Exploration Using Mobile Devices

    Demonstrating VisTiles: Visual Data Exploration Using Mobile Devices

    Langner, R.; Horak, T.; Dachselt, R.

    In Proceedings of the 2018 International Conference on Advanced Visual Interfaces.AVI '18, Castiglione della Pescaia, Grosseto, Italy.ACM,Seite 69:1-69:3,2018.10.1145/3206505.3206583

    @inproceedings{fixme,
       author = {Ricardo Langner and Tom Horak and Raimund Dachselt},
       title = {Demonstrating VisTiles: Visual Data Exploration Using Mobile Devices},
       booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2018 International Conference on Advanced Visual Interfaces},
       series = {AVI '18},
       year = {2018},
       month = {5},
       isbn = {978-1-4503-5616-9},
       location = {Castiglione della Pescaia, Grosseto, Italy},
       pages = {69:1--69:3},
       numpages = {3},
       doi = {10.1145/3206505.3206583},
       url = {http://doi.org/10.1145/3206505.3206583},
       acmid = {3206583},
       publisher = {ACM},
       address = {New York, NY, USA}
    }

    Weitere Materialien

  • VisTiles: Coordinating and Combining Co-located Mobile Devices for Visual Data Exploration

    VisTiles: Coordinating and Combining Co-located Mobile Devices for Visual Data Exploration

    Langner, R.; Horak, T.; Dachselt, R.

    In IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (Band 24, Ausgabe 1).InfoVis '17, Phoenix, Arizona USA.IEEE,Seite 626-636,2018.10.1109/TVCG.2017.2744019 Online publication date: 29 August 2017

    @article{Langner:2018aa,
       author = {Ricardo Langner and Tom Horak and Raimund Dachselt},
       title = {VisTiles: Coordinating and Combining Co-located Mobile Devices for Visual Data Exploration},
       journal = {IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics},
       volume = {24},
       issue = {1},
       year = {2018},
       month = {1},
       location = {Phoenix, Arizona USA},
       pages = {626--636},
       numpages = {11},
       doi = {10.1109/TVCG.2017.2744019},
       url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TVCG.2017.2744019},
       publisher = {IEEE},
       keywords = {collaboration, data visualization, mobile communication, prototypes, smart phones, visualization, mobile devices, coordinated \& multiple views, cross-device interaction, multi-display environment}
    }

    Weitere Materialien

    Slides, Video

  • Towards Combining Mobile Devices for Visual Data Exploration

    Towards Combining Mobile Devices for Visual Data Exploration

    Langner, R.; Horak, T.; Dachselt, R.

    In Poster Program of the 2016 IEEE Conference on Information Visualization (InfoVis).InfoVis '16, Baltimore, MD, USA.2016.

    @inproceedings{fixme,
       author = {Ricardo Langner and Tom Horak and Raimund Dachselt},
       title = {Towards Combining Mobile Devices for Visual Data Exploration},
       booktitle = {Poster Program of the 2016 IEEE Conference on Information Visualization (InfoVis)},
       year = {2016},
       month = {10},
       location = {Baltimore, MD, USA},
       numpages = {2}
    }

    Weitere Materialien

    Video Poster

  • Information Visualizations with Mobile Devices: Three Promising Aspects

    Information Visualizations with Mobile Devices: Three Promising Aspects

    Langner, R.; Horak, T.; Dachselt, R.

    In Proceedings of the Workshop on Data Exploration for Interactive Surfaces (DEXIS 2015).ITS '15, Funchal/Madeira, Portugal.Seite 20-23,2015.

    @inproceedings{fixme,
       author = {Ricardo Langner and Tom Horak and Raimund Dachselt},
       title = {Information Visualizations with Mobile Devices: Three Promising Aspects},
       booktitle = {Proceedings of the Workshop on Data Exploration for Interactive Surfaces (DEXIS 2015)},
       year = {2015},
       month = {11},
       location = {Funchal/Madeira, Portugal},
       pages = {20--23},
       numpages = {4},
       keywords = {Information visualization; Mobile devices; Multi-touch interaction; Spatial input; Spatial arrangement}
    }

    Weitere Materialien

Marvis: Mobile Devices and Augmented Reality

With Marvis, the work contributed a conceptual framework that combines mobile devices and head-mounted Augmented Reality (AR) for visual data analysis. The core idea was to demonstrate how the limited screen space of mobile devices can be extended by AR—to present additional 2D and 3D information around, above, and between mobile devices.

MARVIS teaser image
The basic idea of Marvis and four examples of extending mobile data visualizations.

Further Information

See the separate project website for further photos and videos of the Marvis project.

FlowTransfer: Content Sharing Between Phones and a Large Display

With FlowTransfer, the work proposed a collection of five interaction techniques that explore different aspects of cross-device data transfer while assuming that the mobile phone’s position and orientation are known. The techniques considered multi-item transfer, interactions from different positions and distances in front of the large display wall, and also layout support: Both precise and casual layouts could be generated while transferring to the large display, and layouts could be copied from the large display to the mobile device.

flowtransfer-teaser
Examples of data transfer techniques based on pointing interaction with a mobile device.

Further Information

See the separate project website for further photos and videos of the FlowTransfer project.

Divico: Touch and Pointing Interaction for Multiple Coordinated Views

With Divico, the work investigated direct touch and pointing interaction for MCV displayed on a wall-sized display. The role of mobile devices was to enable interaction with visualizations from varying distances. A qualitative user study then aimed to investigate how pairs of users behave during data analysis, how they move in the physical space in front of the large display, how they work together, and when and for which actions they use the mobile device.

Multiple coordinated views (MCV) at large displays
Using direct touch and pointing interaction with a mobile device for interaction with MCV that are shown on a wall-sized display.

Further Information

See the separate project website for further photos and videos of the Divico project.

IV. Further Publications

Besides the project publications listed above, Ricardo Langner also co-authored the following publications during his doctoral studies:

V. Contributing Student Theses

The following student theses contributed partly to the previously listed co-authored publications:

  • Robert Fuhrmann

    Unterstützung und Implikationen von Gruppen-Awareness bei einer kollaborativen Websuche(Masterarbeit)

    Robert Fuhrmann

  • Lucas Recknagel

    Tangible Views für Informationsvisualisierungen mit vertikalen Kontextdisplays(Masterarbeit)

    Lucas Recknagel

  • Christin Engel

    Multi-Touch-Interaktionskonzept für Star Plots(Masterarbeit)

    Christin Engel

  • Nils Henning

    Integration der Visualisierungstechniken parallele Koordinaten und Stream Graphs für VisTiles(Bachelorarbeit)

    Nils Henning

  • Marc Satkowski

    Smartphones zur Fernsteuerung von Informationsvisualisierungen an einem großen Display(research)

    Marc Satkowski

  • Anton Augsburg

    Innovative Konzepte für die Verbindung und Interaktion von/mit großen interaktiven Displays und mobilen Geräten(Diplomarbeit)

    Anton Augsburg

  • Tom Horak

    Kombination von Mobilgeräten: Neuartige Konzepte für die interaktive Informationsvisualisierung(Masterarbeit)

    Tom Horak

  • Matthias Kalms

    Interaktiver Vergleich von Datensätzen an einer Displaywall mit mobilen Geräten(Studienarbeit)

    Matthias Kalms

  • Anton Augsburg

    Sifteo-Cube trifft Surface: Entwicklung neuer Interaktionskonzepte für die Kombination interaktiver Tangibles mit Tabletops(Studienarbeit)

    Anton Augsburg

A full list of all student theses co-supervised by Ricardo Langner (before, during, and after his doctoral studies) can be found on this page.