Pan and zoom

Single large continuous spaces rather than discrete pages. Actors navigate by panning (horizontal/vertical movement) and zooming (scale changes). Everything exists in a single coordinate system, eliminating page transitions but introducing orientation and wayfinding challenges.

Behavioural position

Supports

• Exploring — spatial metaphors naturally support discovery
• Navigating — direct access to known locations (with landmarks or coordinates)
• Visual scanning and pattern recognition at multiple scales

Constrains

• Re-finding — harder without clear landmarks or bookmarks
• Transactional search — limited unless search features can position/highlight
• Orientation — actors can get lost without good wayfinding

Variants

• TODO: Geographic maps
• Zoomable timelines
• TODO: Infinite canvas

States

View states

• Overview — zoomed out, showing broad context
• Detail — zoomed in, examining specific area
• Transitioning — animating between positions/scales

Interaction states

• Panning — actively dragging view
• Zooming — actively changing scale
• Idle — viewing without navigation
• Loading — fetching data for new visible area

Orientation states

• Oriented — actor knows their position
• Landmarks visible — recognisable features in view
• Disoriented — requires reset or wayfinding

Implementation patterns

• Pan controls: drag to pan, arrow keys, scrollbars, edge panning (moving cursor to edge to pan)
• Zoom controls: pinch gesture, mouse wheel, zoom buttons, double-tap/click, zoom to fit
• Orientation aids: TODO: minimap, landmarks, coordinates, reset button
• Performance optimisation: viewport culling (rendering only visible area), level of detail, tile loading, debounced updates

To-do

Complementary patterns to capture:

• Bookmarks or saved views
• Minimap, or overview-detail patterns
• Layers, or filtering for complex spaces

Resources & references

• Shneiderman (1996) The Eyes Have It: A Task by Data Type Taxonomy for Information Visualizations
• Bederson, Hollan (1994) Pad++: A Zooming Graphical Interface for Exploring Alternate Interface Physics