Viewing personal history records: a comparison of tabular format and graphical presentation using LifeLines

Thirty-six participants used a static version of either Lifelines, a graphical interface, or a tabular representation to answer questions about a database of temporal personal history information. Results suggest that overall the Lifelines representation led to much faster response times, primarily for questions which involved interval comparisons and making intercategorical connections. A 'first impression' test showed that Lifelines can reduce some of the biases of the tabular record summary. A post-experimental memory test led to significantly (p<0.004) higher recall for Lifelines. Finally, simple interaction techniques are proposed to compensate for the problems of the static Lifelines display's ability to deal with precise dates, attribute coding and overlaps.