Exploring Information Visualization – Describing Different Interaction Patterns

Margit Pohl, Sylvia WiltnerInstitute for Design and Assessment of Technology

Vienna University of Technology

Silvia MikschDepartment of Information and Knowledge Engineering,

Danube University Krems

Motivation

interaction with information visualization:

process of exploration (Andrienko & Andrienko 2005)

concept of insight (North 2006) – insight is:complex, deep, qualitative, unexpected, relevant

Gestalt psychology: concept of insightholistic theory of perception and reasoningsimilarity between perception and reasoning

Gestalt psychology – reasoning (Mayer 1995)

insight as completing a schema

problem is a coherent set of information with a gap, solution is to fill this gap in a way to complete this structure

insight as reorganizing visual information

insight occurs when a problem solver literally looks at a problem situation in a new way

insight as reformulation of a problem

insight occurs when a problem solver mentally redefines and clarifies the problem

insight as removing mental blocksreliance on inappropriate past experience

insight as finding a problem analogusing the structural organization of one situation to understand a new problem

Recent models (Davidson 2008)

Selective encodingwhen people identify important elements of information previously seen as irrelevantsupported e.g. by highlighting

Selective combinationindividuals discover an appropriate framework for previously unrelated facts

Selective comparisonrelationship between present problem and previousexperience is foundanalogy

Training problem solvers in these activities improves insights.

Research framework

Do users of information visualization tools engage in such activities?

How can we identify such activites?

Can we motivate users with appropriate design to engage in these activities?