Controlling Presentation Speed, Labels, and Tooltips in Interactive Animations

Abstract

The experiment investigated whether controlling presentation speed as well as labels, which display the names of the currently presented nodes in interactive dynamic graphs, affects comprehension performance. Dynamic graphs are animated graphical representations of nodes and edges representing mathematical structures used to model relations between different objects over time. After being tested on spatial imagination and linguistic thinking, 111 students had to answer twelve multiple choice comprehension questions about six interactive dynamic graphs while working with them. For each question, participants were randomly assigned to one cell of a 2 (with or without a scrollbar to adjust the presentation speed of the visualization) × 2 (with labels displaying all names of the currently presented nodes in the dynamic graphs or with tooltips displaying only one node name if the mouse cursor hovers over this node) factorial design. Scrollbars, which allow adjusting the presentation speed, were rarely used and did not foster learners’ comprehension performance. Labels displaying all names of the currently presented nodes fostered learners’ comprehension performance compared to tooltips. The higher the ability for linguistic thinking of the participants, the more their comprehension performance benefited from labels. These results are consistent with the cognitive-affective theory of learning with media.