Visualization
From CS 160 Fall 2010
pdf Slides
Readings
Information Visualization Readings in Information Visualization. Chap 1. Card, Mackinlay, Schneiderman.
Your Response
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Frank Chew 04:40, 29 November 2010 (CET)
This article points out many ways to graph information. I was suprised that there were not more ways illustrated to turn a data table into a graph. For example, many charts available in Excel were not covered in this article, such as pie charts, line charts, bar charts, and multi-level bar charts. Insofar as 3D charts go, are there known measures for determining how easy they are to read?
Karthik Jagadeesh 06:49, 29 November 2010 (CET)
This article was a very interesting read which highlighted the importance of visualization. Visualization is the use of computer supported, interactive, visual representation of data to amplify cognition. There were several examples that the article highlighted which clearly show the importance of visualization techniques. The graphs that showed the temperature v. the number of accidents for space ships was a clear example of how a better visualization could have made the viewer understand the data better and make a better decision regarding whether to allow to space ship to take off.
I thought that it was interesting to note that the way to tell how effective a visualization is not by the type of pictures in the diagram, but by how intuitive the diagram is for the reader. This makes sense since the point of visualization is insight for the reader. The visualization can be applied to many different areas such as scientific visualization or information visualization where each type describes the type of data that is being visualized. Visualization is going to become an extremely important field especially because we live in a world where we can collect billions of data points, and it is going to be extremely important to make sense of that data.
Andy Lin 07:39, 29 November 2010 (CET)
As we all know, making information visualization is very important and much easier for people to figure out. As we learn in class that recognition is much better than recall in design, and this article points out that using diagrams is better for recognition. I believe it is not only true in design but also true for everyday life like studying and presenting. One example that I found interesting from the article is how the periodic table that I learned from chemistry is carefully designed to group the different elements with similar chemical properties together. The article also mentions about how to transfer the raw data into a visual structure. I believe that is really an important technique to learn, and that is why we are always asked to analyze our result from an experiment by using graphs.
Chris Song 07:59, 29 November 2010 (CET)
The article gave me a sense of how powerful human visual system really is. With help of visualization, we can perform seemingly very difficult tasks rather easily. Working memory has such a limited duration that even a very simple visualization technique can easily improve understanding and problem solving when compared to just using working memory. It’s interesting to note how different our visual system is when compared to a computer. For instance, we can make better sense of graphical representation of information, whereas computer can make better sense of sets of numbers. Also, our eyes work in such a way that it’s almost impossible with current technology to mimic what we can perceive using cameras very easily. To relate this idea to HCI, it is very important to realize what users’ capabilities are and develop applications that can take advantage of such capabilities (in this case, visualization). Such an approach will lead to development of UI that can fit users without much learning curve.
Melissa Lim 08:17, 29 November 2010 (CET)
Data visualization is important because it helps humans process information more efficiently and can even make it more enjoyable if the information is presented in an aesthetically pleasing manner. The design concepts we learned in class also apply to visualization; Gestalt principles such as grouping and proximity can be used to cluster related information together. It is important to understand human perception in order to design information visualization successfully. I really liked Hamming's quote, "The purpose of visualization is insight, not pictures." The goal is to present information in a way that is easy to process so that more cognitive effort can be spent on discovery and interpretation of the data. One must also consider when and where such diagrams and images are appropriate. Otherwise, if the designer is just aiming for quantity of pictures, "chart junk" may result and lead the reader to become even more confused.
Sui Kun Guan 08:25, 29 November 2010 (CET)
Visualization can help people to hold information and people don't have to hold the information in their mind. This function of visualization extends people's working memory and therefore speeding up people's operating time. This theory teaches me that when we design an interface, minimizing users' memorization can maximize users' operating efficiency. For example, when a user uses a calculator, it is useful that the calculator can hold the previous result by either having a "ans" key or display the previous answer somewhere in the screen, so that the user doesn't have to memorize or writing down the previous result when the user needs that result to calculate the next result.
Daniel Yoo 09:45, 29 November 2010 (CET)
The article emphasized on importance of visualization that sending right information is critical to users. As for my experience, when something is ambiguous to use then I lose my potential to play around with it. This is why, in class, we have learned the recognition is powerful tool to use in the user interface design. There are six major ways in which visualizations can amplify cognition – increasing the memory and processing resources available to the users, by reducing the search for information, and etc. This reading makes me wonder how cognitive science could be fun to learn and play around with human’s thoughts.
Jeremy Sasson 10:38, 29 November 2010 (CET)
This was a very interesting article about making sense of large amounts of data by representing them in a way that can be more easily understood. I think this is an incredibly valuable field to consider and to innovate in, as there are plenty of ways to represent the data that do not really help people understand it at all. An interesting point that they formalized in this article was the fact that information visualization can extend a person's working memory by holding partial results outside the mind. One can relate this extension of a working memory to being able to store values in a calculator's memory as opposed to a classic calculator without any sort of memory function. If information visualization can increase the speed of a human's multiplication by a factor of five, who knows what is yet do be discovered about this field in the future.
Brian Maissy 11:55, 29 November 2010 (CET)
I think the most important take-away point from this article for this class is not to underestimate the power of the visual in designing interfaces. We have already looked at simple heuristics such as using visual recognition as a better substitute for recall, but this article shows that there is a much stronger and deeper connection between the visual and human cognition. The effectiveness of an interface is not determined by the amount and quality of the information displayed to the user; it is a function of how well the user can conceptualize the data. The ideal interface would provide data in a purely intuitive visualization.
Bichen Wang 12:28, 29 November 2010 (CET)
It is quite interesting how visualization of data can dramatically change viewpoints. It’s not just poor scaling or location bias either; some of these examples bring novel approaches to viewing data that could definitely be viewed in a different perspective. For example, the baby sleep-cycle graph showed a lot of data in a very small amount of space. The Sine Wave with colored dots, however, clearly was a poor representation of a sine wave; though it is rather weird how the more traditional graph looks so simple. This even shows how the eyes work and how extremely complex vision is. The study of visualization is extremely complex and quite intimidating seeing just how careful we have to be with our visuals.
Robert Connick 13:54, 29 November 2010 (CET)
While using visualizations to find patterns is good, I think the coolest thing is that visualizations can actually perform the calculations graphically, a la the slide rule. This property is underused today for obvious reasons - just like the pocket calculator, devices that perform those same calculations digitally are so ubiquitous that batteryless instruments like the slide rule are no longer necessary. Furthermore, the power requirements of using a graphical rather than symbolic representation of data cannot justify a "virtual" slide rule, since the device would perform the calculation, then convert the result to a visualization. Perhaps one way to take advantage of visualizations once more as fast, low-power calculation tools would be a research topic I heard about in CS61C: the calculation is run at such low power that it is not guaranteed to be correct! Except instead of using a "redundant" check to catch errors, the result is just estimated by the graph. One pixel more or less doesn't change the user's overall perception of the result.
Adam Vogt 14:28, 29 November 2010 (CET)
I actually ended up finding this article to be a lot more interesting and in-depth than I originally expected it to be. I guess I never realized that displaying information was such a rich topic. I especially enjoyed the portion that broke down the mechanics of the human eye. I never really thought about the fact that information could be laid out in different ways to take advantage of the different characteristics of the human eye. For instance, I would have never thought to take into account our peripheral vision when creating a layout. As matter of fact I don’t think I would consider the layout beyond its functionality and aesthetics. This article really made me think that there are several other things that should be considered.
Samantha Paras 18:00, 29 November 2010 (CET)
I think the main idea of this article is that visuals are very important and can be used effectively to display or calculate data or information. It explains why this is true and explains different ways to display data, such as charts and graphs. Now the difficulty lies in figuring out how to use these visuals in the best way. With so many different options to display data, we must figure out what is best for our own applications.
Mark Wei 18:19, 29 November 2010 (CET)
Data visualization is a very hot topic right now. Many "Infographics" are being made on the internet that showcase data in interesting ways. Raw data, as the reading says, is very hard to parse, especially when there is a huge data set. But when made into a chart or graph, patterns naturally appear.
Sean Tai 18:45, 29 November 2010 (CET)
The explanations for why visualizations make it easier for humans to process certain types of information were simple but reasonable. Allowing for easily finding patterns and grouping similar information together were the two explanations that I found most striking. These explanations remind me of a lecture in the past where Prof. Canny explained how the human eye instinctually groups similar objects together: we seem to have natural visual, perceptual capacities, and using visualizations for displaying information takes advantage of this.
Courtney Wang 19:29, 29 November 2010 (CET)
I really enjoyed this article on data visualization. With more and more graphical and statistical processing tools becoming available to us every day, it's important to present data in the most easily processed way for human beings. Data by itself is useless without a good way of presenting it. As data aggregation over huge spaces like the internet becomes more widespread, the visualization of big data sets is going to play a big role in how information is processed in the 21st century. Understanding how the human body actually goes through the process of perceiving and processing visualizations of data will help in creating more effective ways to make data more digestible. This article really keyed into the fact that creating understandable data starts with understanding how data is processed in the human brain.
Christine Lu 19:43, 29 November 2010 (CET)
This article brings up the importance of visualization of information to ease the user's understanding. I found two of the author's examples very interesting - visualizing financial data and the periodic table of elements. First, being able to see such financial data so easily in the 3-D model and being able to move around lines and view changes in the graph makes it much easier for bankers to predict changes in the market. I also found the chemistry example very illuminating, that the arrangement of the elements into non-rectangular shapes also reflected and predicted the real world.
Alexander Wong 19:52, 29 November 2010 (CET)
Humans are very dependent on vision so it only makes sense that we would depend on visualizations. The opening argument about mental vs paper multiplication illustrates the affect on our ability to do math using external tools. It is a weak argument because it doesn't compare visual tools vs. non-visual mathematics tools. Performing any task with the help of a specialized tool always increases performance, assuming the tool is designed correctly.
The second example about the graphical presentation of rocket boosters is much more applicable and insightful. We've been taught, since late middle school, to draw graphs to show trends. We've also been taught that statistics can lie. It's interesting to think that the choice of graphs can also influence the interpretation of data so drastically.
Kyle Gorlick 20:02, 29 November 2010 (CET)
It's crazy how important visualization and external aids are to helping us think. I never realized how significant external aids are that people have created to help us learn. Using information visualization with computers is amazingly useful, and I never realized what a big influence it was on helping humans learn. I think external aids are most interesting as tools to help one realize ideas, rather than convey ideas.
James Yu 20:05, 29 November 2010 (CET)
The reading does illustrate how good information visualization may be a very powerful way to present information. For example when summarizing large sets of data, like the sleep patterns of a baby, a good visualization is able to show the main trends easily. A good visualization also allows you to easily change parameters and notice patterns just by selecting a different point on the graph. The reading also shows how a bad visualization can lead people to reach different conclusions (for example the Challenger O-ring). There's also a good point that visuzalization can be a way to externalize memory. The reading also gives examples of how data can be mapped to visualizations through derived data. Overall I felt it was helpful in showing how to better present data.
Arthur Huang 20:19, 29 November 2010 (CET)
This article brings up many good points on how powerful and useful the human visualization system is. It can help tremendously with what would normally be a hard task; visual cues are helpful for memory and jobs. As has been said in class, recognition is better than recall, and apparently using diagrams is great for recognition, which makes sense because often in textbooks I find the material with diagrams and graphics the easiest to comprehend. Simple and subtle visual cues can help in ways that we don't even notice, such as little hints on calculators or keypads.
Alexander Bolotov 20:16, 29 November 2010 (CET)
I have known for a time now that visualisation is very important to cognition, both through reading about it and direct experience. So it came as little surprise that so much time would be dedicated to visualisation of information by means of computers. However, what surprised me is that the reading made no mention of motion as a cognitive aid, which I find to be even more important than visualisation. I feel that with the onset of new technologies such as touchscreens and those 3D cameras, creating the visualisations thatare animated, and therefore move or morph at the user's whim will become more and more important.
Danica Shei 20:23, 29 November 2010 (CET)
This article shows how visualization can impact learning through various examples such as the periodic table. Because the elements are grouped together by components they contain, it is easier for the student to recognize the similarities and mentally group them together. A great visual design can ease the process of understanding - a good presentation of information can also help the interpretation of data and new information. As a visual learner, I feel this article makes a great point because presentation or organization of information is just as important as the information itself. Thus, as a student, I appreciate graphs that are well organized and pictures that relay information in an organized manner.
Raymond Williams 20:34, 29 November 2010 (CET)
Imagine, if you will, a virtual world where your data is truly visual. I don't mean on a surface, I mean floating in front of you. You say the name of a folder, and it falls from the sky to float a few feet in front of you. You reach out your hands to open the folder and images pop out. You pull an image to the side, push another one away, and stretch another. You touch the image and 3D virtual copy of your friend appears. You throw the image at one of your friends and say "Here's that image I told you about." A few seconds later your friend appears. "Thanks, buddy!" The two of you chat for a bit, before you fly away, back to the real world. This is the visual data representation that I dream about. It will likely come out within our lifetime. I look forward to it...
Alex Aberle 21:10, 29 November 2010 (CET)
Given a choice, a graph, diagram, or picture is always preferable to raw data for getting a sense of a data set, and usually preferable to a chart with summary statistics. Images make things easier to comprehend and remember, help to organize and clarify patterns and trends, and save time that would otherwise be spent searching or doing calculations. This doesn't mean that a bad visualization is always better than a good chart, though. Bad visualization can distract the user, distort and/or conceal otherwise clear patterns, and allow the user to come to false conclusions with no way to disprove them. Sometimes access to raw data is immensely useful, as a user can plug the data into eg. matlab, excel and see whether a hypothesized property is present. A fancy visualization with no access to raw data makes this impossible. Another thing to note is that a visualization is not a neutral being. The effect of a visualization is controlled by the person who made it, and that person has biases, blindspots, a weaknesses just like any other person. The only way to really be sure is to have the raw data, or to make the measurements yourself.
Yue Chang Hu 21:19, 29 November 2010 (CET)
Visualization is especially important for User Interface Designing now a day. I especially agree with the quote, "a picture is worth ten thousand words" especially for UI designing because examples shows that having visualization aids significantly helps the user performs better. For instance, the multiplication example,shows that not many people would have the ability to multiply two two digit numbers quickly; however when given visualization aids, it can be quickly done by many people. Another example is graphing calculators. Now a day graphing calculators would display a visual representation(that contains thousands of computation) of an equation, making it easier and quicker for people to understand the characteristic of a equation.
Robert Connick 21:53, 29 November 2010 (CET)
I admit I lol'd. Got 26 people including me. Would this classify as a breaching experiment though? If so, then it would appear that there exist no forces keeping in place the social structure by which students don't give each other fake assignments; however, I doubt that pure inertia is enough.
