Designing and implementing an interactive scatterplot visualization for a tablet computer

Tablet computers now offer screen sizes and computing capabilities that are competitive with traditional desktop PCs. Their popularity has grown tremendously, but we are just beginning to see information visualization applications designed for this platform. One potential reason for this limited development is the challenge of designing and implementing a multi-touch interface for visualizations on mobile, tablet devices. In this work, we identify the primary challenges that touch screen interactions pose for information visualization applications. We explore the design space of multi-touch interactions for visualizations and present a prototype information visualization application using a specific technique, a dynamic scatterplot, for an iPad.