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Each visualization is contained in a rectangle (hence Rectangular) the user can move visualizations around by dragging them and change their properties by tapping on them. The screen slides to the right where the user can specify the parameters of the visualisation visualization : channel, property (within the channel), visualisation visualization type (histogram, plot through time, etc.).
A challenge for this design is making visible the afordance affordance that the visiualisations visualizations can be dragged arround around with a finger. For this we rely on intuition the user has from using other mobile interfaces (ex. iOS main menu behaves in a similar way).
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The main screen shows a list of avialable available channels and color codes them based on recent activity. Tapping a channel selects its detailed view (bottom right) which displays live graphs of any numeric quantities. Tapping a graph or number in a channel brings up the graph interface (below).
Graph interface fills the screen. Interaction is similar to a photograph which users are familar familiar with. Pinch or double-tap to zoom, drag to pan. A single tap anywhere freezes/unfreezes the graph (ie stops or starts live data being added.)
More traces can be added to the plot by pressing Menu and then selecting Add Trace. The Add Trace window appears (lower right) which allows the user to browse through available channels and variables in those channels. More than one new variable can be selected.
A control mode, accesible accessible from the Menu button on the main screen allows the user to change parameters. Options are presented as spinners which update in real-time (send data on finger-up). An interface for selecting the resolution of the spinner is shown in the lower right.
When graphing text, we display small colored bars at the bottom of the screen that change color when the text changes. While this does not convey what the text is, it conveys that it has changed, which may still be useful. We use a hashing strategy to display colors, so that the same text will always have the same color.
