The
left-hand panel in the interface is
the Display-panel, presenting a detailed
graphical display of a particular
representation, while the upper-right
panel serves as an Overview, providing
a thumbprint of the detailed display.
A user can select a portion of interest
on the Overview, prompting the interface
to display the selected part in detail
on the Display-panel. At the top of
both the Display-panel and the Overview
are four tabs. Clicking on one of
these will bring up one of the four
types of the interface: Content
Summary, Interaction Summary,
Expert Indicator, and Behavior
Summary. Each type presents one
graphical representation displaying
a certain aspect of a CMC process
on both the Display-panel and the
Overview. In addition, Content
Summary, Interaction Summary,
and Expert Indicator divide
their display-panels into sub-gardens
based on the sub-topics identified
automatically. Thus each sub-garden
represents one subtopic.
- Content Summary
describes the temporal change of
each sub-topic, where one green
line means there was one message
posted on a certain day for this
sub-topic. While the x-axis represents
time, the vertical thickness of
each sub-topic indicates how "hot"
it is on a certain day.
- Interaction
Summary depicts the liveliness
of discussion within each sub-topic,
where one flower is on thread. The
number of flower petals equals the
number of messages posted for that
thread, while the number of leaves
represents the number of persons
who participate in the discussion
of this thread. In addition, the
height of a flower indicates how
long the thread lasts.
- Expert Indicator
uses person flowers to help users
locate active persons in each sub-topic,
where one flower represents one
person. The number of petals equals
the number of messages that person
has posted. The number of leaves
indicates the number of threads
in which that person has participated,
and the height of the flower indicates
how long the person has stayed in
the community.
- Behavior Summary
describes the behavior of each participant
during the CMC process. The same
type of the person flower is used
here. A user may obtain from the
Behavior Summary valuable
information such as the attitude
of the participants toward the community
(indicated by the number of messages
each person posts and the length
of time each person stays in the
community).
The lower-right panel
is the Message panel, which displays
the list of messages of interest that
a user has selected from the Display-panel.
By clicking on one message title will
bring up another window that displays
the content of the selected message.
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