The present invention relates to techniques for supporting organizational,
labeling and retrieval tasks on an electronic tabletop, wall or large
display. In various embodiments of the invention, a dynamic visualization
is used to show a current working set of documents. In an embodiment of
the invention, the rest of the collection is represented in the
background as small dots. In an embodiment of the invention, when a user
moves objects into groups or creates a label, relevant objects in the
background are automatically retrieved and moved into the foreground. In
an embodiment of the invention, retrieved objects along with relevant
objects in the current set are highlighted and decorated with arrows
pointing to their relevant groups. In an embodiment of the invention, the
movement is animated to provide user feedback when objects must travel
long distances on a large display.