TY - JOUR
T1 - Constructing visual representations
T2 - investigating the use of tangible tokens
AU - Huron, Samuel
AU - Jansen, Yvonne
AU - Carpendale, Sheelagh
PY - 2014/12
Y1 - 2014/12
N2 - The accessibility of infovis authoring tools to a wide audience has been identified as a major research challenge. A key task in the authoring process is the development of visual mappings. While the infovis community has long been deeply interested in finding effective visual mappings, comparatively little attention has been placed on how people construct visual mappings. In this paper, we present the results of a study designed to shed light on how people transform data into visual representations. We asked people to create, update and explain their own information visualizations using only tangible building blocks. We learned that all participants, most of whom had little experience in visualization authoring, were readily able to create and talk about their own visualizations. Based on our observations, we discuss participants’ actions during the development of their visual representations and during their analytic activities. We conclude by suggesting implications for tool design to enable broader support for infovis authoring.
AB - The accessibility of infovis authoring tools to a wide audience has been identified as a major research challenge. A key task in the authoring process is the development of visual mappings. While the infovis community has long been deeply interested in finding effective visual mappings, comparatively little attention has been placed on how people construct visual mappings. In this paper, we present the results of a study designed to shed light on how people transform data into visual representations. We asked people to create, update and explain their own information visualizations using only tangible building blocks. We learned that all participants, most of whom had little experience in visualization authoring, were readily able to create and talk about their own visualizations. Based on our observations, we discuss participants’ actions during the development of their visual representations and during their analytic activities. We conclude by suggesting implications for tool design to enable broader support for infovis authoring.
KW - Faculty of Science
KW - Constructive visualization
KW - Physical visualization
KW - Dynamic visualization
KW - Empirical study
KW - Token
KW - Visualization authoring
KW - Information visualization
KW - Visual mapping
U2 - 10.1109/TVCG.2014.2346292
DO - 10.1109/TVCG.2014.2346292
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 26356924
SN - 1077-2626
VL - 20
SP - 2102
EP - 2111
JO - I E E E Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics
JF - I E E E Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics
IS - 12
ER -