Conference article

Usability Analysis of Custom Visualization Tools

Mohammad A. Kuhail
IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Soren Lauesen
IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Kostas Pantazos
IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Xu Shangjin
IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Download article

Published in: Proceedings of SIGRAD 2012; Interactive Visual Analysis of Data; November 29-30; 2012; Växjö; Sweden

Linköping Electronic Conference Proceedings 81:4, p. 19-28

Show more +

Published: 2012-11-20

ISBN: 978-91-7519-723-4

ISSN: 1650-3686 (print), 1650-3740 (online)

Abstract

Many visualization tools allow the implementation of custom (non-standard) visualizations; but they differ in approach. The approaches vary from imperative to declarative programming. Moreover; some tools provide environments that assist designers in implementing visualizations. Which approach supports designers best in implementing custom visualizations? What is lacking? To answer these questions; we compared the approaches of four recent visualization tools that support custom visualizations using an example. Further; we evaluated the approaches using the framework of the Cognitive Dimensions of Notations (CDs). Our findings favour notations that use declarative rather than imperative programming; and environments that allow exploration rather than dialogue-dependant ones.

Keywords

H.3.4 [Systems and Software]: Performance evaluation (efficiency and effectiveness)—H.5.2 [User Interfaces]: Evaluation/methodology

References

[Aka11] AKASAKA R.: Protoviewer: a web-based visual design environment for protovis. In ACM SIGGRAPH 2011 Posters (New York; NY; USA; 2011); SIGGRAPH ’11; ACM; pp. 85:1– 85:1. 24

[BGM04] BEDERSON B. B.; GROSJEAN J.; MEYER J.: Toolkit design for interactive structured graphics. IEEE Trans. Software Eng. 30; 8 (2004); 535–546. 20

[BH09] BOSTOCK M.; HEER J.: Protovis: A graphical toolkit for visualization. IEEE Trans. Vis. Comput. Graph. 15; 6 (2009); 1121–1128. 19; 20

[BOH11] BOSTOCK M.; OGIEVETSKY V.; HEER J.: D3 datadriven documents. IEEE Trans. Vis. Comput. Graph. 17; 12 (2011); 2301–2309. 20

[Byr99] BYRD D.: A scrollbar-based visualization for document navigation. In ACM DL (1999); pp. 122–129. 19

[CMS99] CARD S. K.; MACKINLAY J. D.; SHNEIDERMAN B.: Readings in information visualization - using vision to think. Academic Press; 1999. 20

[Fek04] FEKETE J.-D.: The infovis toolkit. In INFOVIS (2004); pp. 167–174. 19

[Fla] FLARE: Data visualization for the web. http://flare. prefuse.org/. [Online; accessed June-2012]. 20

[GB98] GREEN T.; BLACKWELL A.: Cognitive dimensions of information artefacts: a tutorial. T.R.G. Green and A.F. Blackwell 1; 2 (1998). 20

[Gre89] GREEN T. R. G.: Cognitive dimensions of notations. In Proceedings of the fifth conference of the British Computer Society; Human-Computer Interaction Specialist Group on People and computers V (New York; NY; USA; 1989); Cambridge University Press; pp. 443–460. 19

[HC12] HARGER J.; CROSSNO P.: Comparison of open-source visual analytics toolkits. In SPIEConference on Visualization and Data Analysis (2012). 20

[HCL05] HEER J.; CARD S. K.; LANDAY J. A.: prefuse: a toolkit for interactive information visualization. In CHI (2005); pp. 421–430. 19; 20

[KL12] KUHAIL M. A.; LAUESEN S.: Customizable visualizations with formula-linked building blocks. In GRAPP/IVAPP (2012); pp. 768–771. 20

[KPL12] KUHAIL M. A.; PANDAZO K.; LAUESEN S.: Customizable time-oriented visualizations. In ISVC (2) (2012); pp. 668–677. 20

[KPX13] KOSTAS PANTAZOS MOHAMMAD A. KUHAIL S. L.; XU S.: Constructing visualizations with a development environment. In Submitted to: VDA (2013). 19

[LKP13] LAUESEN S.; KUHAIL M. A.; PANDAZOS K.; XU S.; ANDERSEN M. B.: A drag-drop-formula tool for custom visualization. 20

[Nor86] NORMAN D. A.: User Centered System Design: New Perspectives on Human-computer Interaction. CRC Press; 1986. 21

[PGB02] PLAISANT C.; GROSJEAN J.; BEDERSON B. B.: Spacetree: Supporting exploration in large node link tree; design evolution and empirical evaluation. In INFOVIS (2002); pp. 57– 64. 19

[PL12] PANTAZOS K.; LAUESEN S.: Constructing visualizations with infovis tools - an evaluation from a user perspective. In GRAPP/IVAPP (2012); pp. 731–736. 19

[Pro] PROCESSING:. http://processing.org/. [Online; accessed Aug-2012]. 20

[SEH00] SUTCLIFFE A. G.; ENNIS M.; HU J.: Evaluating the effectiveness of visual user interfaces for information retrieval. Int. J. Hum.-Comput. Stud. 53; 5 (2000); 741–763. 19

[SJ07] SEARS A.; JACKO J. A.: The Human-Computer Interaction Handbook: Fundamentals; Evolving Technologies and Emerging Applications. CRC Press; 2007. 20

[Wea04] WEAVER C.: Building highly-coordinated visualizations in improvise. In INFOVIS (2004); pp. 159–166. 20

Citations in Crossref