Visualizing web browsing history with barcode chart

Abstract

Inspired by the DNA art, we introduce a data visualization technique called barcode chart, which uses color-illuminated stripes that resemble barcodes to visualize temporal data. Barcode chart excels at demonstrating high-level patterns in highly segmented temporal data, while retaining details in the data through interaction. We demonstrate Yogurt, a browser extension that implements barcode chart to visualize online browsing history. We conducted a user study and analyzed the effectiveness of using barcode chart for Yogurt in comparison with other applications. We conclude that barcode chart satisfies the need of visualizing the high-density and high-fragmentation nature of temporal data in Yogurt, and helps reveal online distraction and other web browsing patterns.