iBlogVis: An Interactive Blog Visualization Tool

Abstract

We developed and evaluated a visualization tool for browsing individual blog archives. In our study, we solicited qualitative feedback from the participants to explore the reasons behind their usability ratings. This feedback reveals factors that are deemed important in selecting entries to read, and adds to the understanding of blogging practices. Based on our analysis, we propose two design principles to complement the current blog interfaces: (1) A blog should provide a rich overview of its content to ease information exploration; and (2) A blog should utilize social interaction history to help users find potentially useful entries.