Hello, and thank you for coming by. We are testing an interface called a "threadmap" for reading conversations as part of a university research project.
The following questions concern the rec.bicycles.misc discussion group.
About how long have you been reading this group?
About how long have you used online discussion groups of any kind?
What program or service do you usually use to read incoming new messages in this group? (For example, your e-mail program, newsreader, or website where you read these messages.)
What program or service do you usually use to review past messages in this group? (This could be the same answer or a different answer from the previous question.)
How often do you read new messages in this group?
How often do you go back to look at past messages?
How would you describe your participation in this group? (Check all that apply.)
Next, you will see a "threadmap" arrangement of the messages in the recent conversation about Lance Armstrong and claims of doping. The responses to each message are arranged in blocks of text from left to right below the message, forming a tree. Blocks by the same author have the same colour. When the blocks become too small to contain text, their content is not shown. Clicking on a block zooms in to a view where that block is shown at the top and its replies are shown in more detail. When the mouse pointer passes over a reply that quoted its parent, the quoted part is highlighted in the parent block.
Click here to see the threadmap in a new window. Please explore the threadmap and compare how you would read a conversation this way to your usual way. Then rate your level of agreement with each of the following statements.
Please use the space below to describe the reasons for the preferences you just indicated. What did you like or dislike about the threadmap, and how would it affect the way you participate in this group? Feel free to write as much as you like.
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