Overview “vs” Detail on mobile devices: a struggle for screen space

Overview & Detail is a visualization technique suitable for finding points of interest (POIs) located outside the detailed view. In this study we aim to analyze the effects of the size of the overview on the users’ performance on mobile devices. For that purpose we compared three different interfaces, a traditional one, with smaller dimensions overlaying the detailed view; a larger overview, yet not overlaying the detailed view; and one with a resizable overview. Our results show the users’ preference for a resizable overview and for a larger, non-overlapping overview.