Multidimensional scaling for group memory visualization

We describe an attempt to overcome information overload through information visualization - in a particular domain, group memory. A brief review of in formation visualization is followed by a brief description of our methodolo gy. We discuss our system, which uses multidimensional scaling (MDS) to vis ualize relationships between documents, and which we tested on 60 subjects, mostly students. We found three important land statistically significant) differences between task performance on an MDS-generated display and on a r andomly generated display. With some qualifications, we conclude that MDS s peeds up and improves the quality of manual classification of documents and that the MDS display agrees with subject perceptions of which documents ar e similar and should be displayed together. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.