Fishification – Visualizing Activity Streams Using the Aquarium Metaphor

Abstract

Large screens in semi-public spaces are already used in different organizations for presenting information. To make these information radiators work, the visualization and interaction have to be as attractive and intuitive as possible. In this paper, we present a new way of visualizing social activity streams on semi-public large screens. In order to keep the user interface simple, and to attract people that are passing by, the aquarium metaphor is used. Apart from describing a prototype implementation, the paper elaborates on an evaluation of the prototype.