What May Visualization Processes Optimize?

In this paper, we present an abstract model of visualization and inference processes and describe an information-theoretic measure for optimizing such processes. In order to obtain such an abstraction, we first examined six classes of workflows in data analysis and visualization, and identified four levels of typical visualization components, namely disseminative, observational, analytical and model-developmental visualization. We noticed a common phenomenon at different levels of visualization, that is, the transformation of data spaces (referred to as alphabets) usually corresponds to the reduction of maximal entropy along a workflow. Based on this observation, we establish an information-theoretic measure of cost-benefit ratio that may be used as a cost function for optimizing a data visualization process. To demonstrate the validity of this measure, we examined a number of successful visualization processes in the literature, and showed that the information-theoretic measure can mathematically explain the advantages of such processes over possible alternatives.Comment: 10 page

Minors as miners: Modelling and evaluating ontological and linguistic learning

Gold Coas

Enhancing Business Intelligence Quality with Visualization: An Experiment on Stakeholder Network Analysis

Business intelligence (BI) has gained a strategic importance in today’s global competitive environment. However, high-quality BI is not easy to obtain on the Web due to information overload and difficulty to present complicated relationships among various types of business stakeholders. Unfortunately, existing BI tools lack the capability of analyzing and visualizing such relationships and research on BI systems is sparse. In this paper, we review the current market of BI tools and related research, describe an approach to support the development of tools that provide high-quality BI, and report the findings of a user evaluation study of the prototype developed based on the proposed approach. The approach combines information visualization and Web mining techniques with human knowledge to enable business analysts to analyze and visualize complicated business stakeholder relationships. Results of an experiment involving 62 subjects show that the prototype significantly outperformed a traditional method of BI analysis in terms of efficiency, quality of BI, and user satisfaction. The subjects provided favorable comments and expressed strong preferences toward the prototype in most applications. This research contributes to advancing BI research and to providing new empirical findings for BI systems evaluation. Available at: https://aisel.aisnet.org/pajais/vol1/iss1/9

Rola mechanizmów wizualizacyjnych w architekturze informacji

Modern methods of information visualization (Infovis) utilize visual perception. Visualization techniques allow to present data at different organization levels in order to facilitate human understanding of complex spatial or visual data relationships. Visualization methods are widely used in information retrieval and information architects see a large exploratory potential of Infovis. The paper gives an insight into a modern information visualization techniques implemented in online services. Additionally, in contrary to opinions of a few skeptics, the author emphasizes close integration of information visualization methods with ways of shaping the information space.W wizualizacji informacji powszechnie wykorzystuje się zasady działania percepcji wizualnej. Techniki wizualizacji umożliwiają reprezentację danych na różnych poziomach organizacji, pomagając w zrozumieniu ich struktury i wzajemnych korelacji. Metody wizualizacyjne znajdują szerokie zastosowanie w serwisach, zaprojektowanych według logiki architektury informacji. Interakcja interfejsu jest warunkiem koniecznym do zapewnienia funkcjonalnej wizualizacji. Potencjał eksploracyjno-wyszukiwawczy wizualizacji dostrzegają architekci informacji, którzy zajmują się unifikacją procesu projektowania w celach użytkowych. Autorka wymienia wspólne cechy, obszary zastosowań i źródła architektury i wizualizacji informacji w serwisach sieciowych. Jednocześnie, wbrew nielicznym opiniom sceptyków, udowadnia wzajemną korzystną integrację metod wizualizacji i sposobów kształtowania przestrzeni informacyjnych

An Evaluation Framework for Business Intelligence Visualization

Nowadays, data visualization is becoming an essential part of data analysis. Business Intelligence Visualization (BIV) is a powerful tool that helps modern business flows faster and smoother than ever before. However, studies on BIV evaluation are severely lacking; most evaluation studies for BIV is guided by general principles of usability, which have limited aspects covered for customers? needs. The purpose of this research is to develop a framework that evaluates BIV, including decision-making experience. First, we did a literature review for good understanding of research progress on related fields, and established a conceptual framework. Second, we performed a user study that implemented this framework with a set of questionnaires to demonstrate how our framework can be used in real business. Our result proved that this framework can catch differences among different designs of BIV from the users? standpoints. This can help design BIV and promote better decision-makings on business affairs

An Information-theoretic Framework for Visualization

Abstract-In this paper, we examine whether or not information theory can be one of the theoretic frameworks for visualization. We formulate concepts and measurements for qualifying visual information. We illustrate these concepts with examples that manifest the intrinsic and implicit use of information theory in many existing visualization techniques. We outline the broad correlation between visualization and the major applications of information theory, while pointing out the difference in emphasis and some technical gaps. Our study provides compelling evidence that information theory can explain a significant number of phenomena or events in visualization, while no example has been found which is fundamentally in conflict with information theory. We also notice that the emphasis of some traditional applications of information theory, such as data compression or data communication, may not always suit visualization, as the former typically focuses on the efficient throughput of a communication channel, whilst the latter focuses on the effectiveness in aiding the perceptual and cognitive process for data understanding and knowledge discovery. These findings suggest that further theoretic developments are necessary for adopting and adapting information theory for visualization

Toward a Heuristic Model for Evaluating the Complexity of Computer Security Visualization Interface

Computer security visualization has gained much attention in the research community in the past few years. However, the advancement in security visualization research has been hampered by the lack of standardization in visualization design, centralized datasets, and evaluation methods. We propose a new heuristic model for evaluating the complexity of computer security visualizations. This complexity evaluation method is designed to evaluate the efficiency of performing visual search in security visualizations in terms of measuring critical memory capacity load needed to perform such tasks. Our method is based on research in cognitive psychology along with characteristics found in a majority of the security visualizations. The main goal for developing this complexity evaluation method is to guide computer security visualization design and compare different visualization designs. Finally, we compare several well known computer security visualization systems. The proposed method has the potential to be extended to other areas of information visualization

Taxonomías de la visualización de información

Taxonomies of information visualization are a very useful element to get a better understanding of its characteristics and approaches. This paper presents some of the main taxonomies related to information visualization. Some taxonomies are applied to specific application domains and another taxonomies are independents of its particular context of use. For both researches and users, knowledge of these taxonomies helps to choose the better development of information visualizations in their particular application areas.Los esquemas de clasificación de los aspectos relacionados con la visualización de la información conforman un elemento muy útil que permite obtener una mayor claridad sobre sus características y enfoques. En este artículo se presentan las principales clasificaciones o taxonomías acerca de la visualización de la información, y unas son aplicadas a un dominio específico y otras independientes de su contexto de uso. El conocimiento de estas taxonomías les permite a los usuarios e investigadores escoger de una mejor manera lo que más les conviene en términos de la visualización de la información en su área de aplicación