The Distance-Similarity Metaphor in Region-Display Spatializations

n explore and understand abstract information spaces as if they were real geographic spaces. According to the distance-similarity metaphor1 one of the most popular spatial metaphors in information visualizationsimilar entities in a display should be placed closer togetherbecauseuserswillinterpret closerentitiesasbeingmoresimilar. Explicit or implicit belief in the distance-similarity metaphor justifies the notion that more similar documents should be placed near each other in a spatialized document archive.Figure1illustratesthisprinciple. It depicts a portion of the Open Directory Project (ODP), a large human-edited Web site directory that uses a treemap spatialization method.2 A treemap's purpose is to help people visually explore hierarchically organized data, such as file and directory structures on computeroperating systems, or various hierarchical databases available through the Internet. Using the distance-similarity metaphor, Web sites depicted in Figure1(redandwhitedots)wh...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2006
• Where: CGA
• Authors: Sara Irina Fabrikant, Daniel R. Montello, David M. Mark
• Keywords: CGA 2006, Computational Geometry, Distance-similarity Metaphor, Similar Documents, Spatial Metaphor