4 research outputs found
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Glyphs for exploring crowd-sourced subjective survey classification
The findings drawn from opinion survey responses are usually made by producing summary charts or conducting statistical analysis. Both involve data aggregation and filtering as exploring the unaggregated data has traditionally been impractical or error-prone for large numbers of responses. We propose the use of glyphs with parallel coordinate plots to show all survey responses in a single view and design an interactive visual analytics tool around the representation to explore the data. We use this software for a ‘photo content assessment’ survey, where 359 participants classify 900 images by seven criteria. The proposed approach allows all 8,434 responses (49,285 answers to questions in total) to be represented in a single view and helps analysts to both clean the data and understand the nature of the survey responses. We describe the construction of the survey response glyphs and the interface to the interactive visual analytics software and generalise the design principles that arise from the approach. We apply the tool to two other datasets to evaluate the technique and to confirm its wider applicability for surveys with Likert scale responses
The organisation and practices of mapping rural statistics: a case study of Wales
Working at the Wales Rural Observatory (2004 - 2014) provided first-hand experience of mapping rural statistics for policymaking. It was evident that representing social and economic data in population-sparse areas was not as straightforward as the technology permitted. Mapping could reveal rural issues but also caused others to be hidden or misrepresented. This was an issue worthy of further investigation. How was this understood by others attempting to represent social and economic statistics? Were mistakes made, could they be rectified, and what were the consequences?
Literature linked to the topic was fragmented; split between the technical, theoretical and practical. This research has attempted a synthesis, helping develop concepts to guide this research and a lens for understanding mapping practices within organisations.
A case study of Wales was used to investigate mapping practices used for policymaking and planning, applying qualitative methods to study quantitative practices. Studying mapping required more than technical knowledge and more than just critique, it required the study of mapping in context, and more so the detail of these processes in action. As such this research focussed on the experiences of those closest to these processes in an attempt to sensitise future studies to often overlooked interactions.
Multiple barriers existed in Wales and included a lack of technical awareness, capacity, and appropriate training. To overcome these barriers the literature suggests that mapping practices become collaborative activities. However this should not be just in the formation or presentation stages but throughout the mapping process. As a collective all resources can be pooled and used many times, with common rules defined through a process of debate and learning, with all forms of knowing admissible. The technology is certainly in place to enable this to happen. The challenge going forward is raising awareness and creating frameworks that enable this to happen