A high-density catalog for online browsing

In brick-and mortar stores and paper catalogs, the experiential, non-directed consumer activity called browsing can expose a prospective buyer to hundreds of images, scents, and sounds in the space of seconds. On the World Wide Web, however, the browser's experience is attenuated, not only by the limited number of items represented at a given time on a given page, but by the number of arbitrary decisions that are often required to navigate to that page. The High-Density Online Catalog (HDOC) is a single-page, interactive visualization derived from parallel coordinate plots and intended for browsing many items with common attributes. A fully populated HDOC immediately communicates its depth and breadth, and engages the user to dip freely into its contents. A prototype of HDOC, illustrating many hundreds of musical works, has been developed in conjunction with the composer, Philip Glass. The paper discusses the HDOC interface design and initial usability studies.