Research Proposal Draft
Roy Schestowitz
January 7th, 2003
Many data vendors and financial service suppliers extract data from
authorised sources of real-time data. It is common to display this
data in terms of a ticker1, charts or figures and to navigate via symbol lookup, where mouse
clicks are the primary stimuli within the system.
Is this the ideal way of obtaining data or is this only a conventional
preference? Is symbol lookup the ideal form of interacting with data?
Are keyboards and mice the only acceptable means of interaction?
This project attempts to:
- investigate, suggest and implement modified ways of interaction with
financial data.
- divert the user's attention to more relevant figures e.g. high trade
volumes and volatile share values. This may be particularly useful
due to time criticality in financial trade.
- develop and experiment2 with new approaches of presenting and interacting with the data.
Nevertheless, it does not attempt to generate more complex
graphs or analyse trends.
- Providing concrete proof that some proposed interfaces:
- can save time and effort.
- can point users at more relevant figures.
- are more easily and appropriately customisable to specific users.
- Proving that some interfaces and interactions are better than others
in the context of financial data.
- Definition and creation of new interfaces and interactions with financial
data. This should result in convenience, simplicity and higher usability.
The following present a few preliminary suggestions:
- Ticker scroll rate is decreased when ticker is hovered over. Should
any ticker scroll faster instead? Should we enable users to control
the scroller? What are the implications of such changes?
- Charts are commonly static. Should users be allowed interaction with
charts? Larger and wider chart image can allow the user to scroll
horizontally and resolve the need for hyperbolic view of the vertical
axes.
Publications and literature on interfaces and alternative forms of
interaction can encourage innovation and inspiration. Experimentation
with newly implemented systems will later produce the wanted statistics.
The project will initially involve a great deal of research in conjunction
with the proposal of new interfaces and interactions. At a later stage,
these will be implemented and tested for correctness and reliability.
The last stage will involve appraisal of different systems by multiple
users and conclusion will be discussed to form a dissertation.
I am coming from a background of software engineering with some practical
work experience in software development, retrieval and presentation
of data.
My professional interests include user interfaces, computer graphics,
OO programming and the global economy.
Footnotes
- ... ticker1
- Dynamic repetitive display of figures.
- ... experiment2
- Experimentation will involve provisional users and will draw some
constructive conclusions.