Sense and symbolic objects: Strategic sensemaking through design

This paper reports on an ongoing investigation into one aspect of the design thinking phenomenon, namely the use of designed artifacts — sketches, renderings, graphics, models and prototypes — as symbolic objects in strategy making and implementation. It examines the conceptual overlap between design and the strategic cognition perspective, which considers cognitive processes and structures involved in strategic decision making, particularly the phenomenon of sensemaking. It is primarily a theoretical exploration, but draws on two short testimonies from designers. The specific conceptual connection between design practice and strategic cognition theory is potentially valuable to business leaders and managers involved with innovation, design management and strategic decisions. Preliminary findings suggest sensemaking activities by designers generate innovative future concepts with far-reaching strategic implications; designed artifacts aid sensemaking and sensegiving by management in exploring new business opportunities and directions. This paper is an early draft of a fuller account to be published in 2013 (AIEDAM Special Issue, Spring 2013, Vol.27, No.2, Studying and Supporting Design Communication, Edited by: Maaike Kleinsmann & Anja Maier)

The effect of visual illusions on the graphical display of information: Evidence of bias and mitigation: Working paper series--08-05

Graphical displays of business and accounting information are widely used as decision aids. Those who use Excel and other programs with graphics generation capabilities are faced with many options for organizing and displaying information in graphs in a manner that does not result in biased decision making or information extraction. This paper describes four graphs each of which exhibits characteristics associated with a certain known visual illusion. A controlled experiment was carried out to demonstrate the visual illusions resulted in systematically biased decision making. It is also proposed and validated that the bias can be mitigated by including properly formatted gridlines when preparing the graphs. The implication of this research is that that an important addition to the set of generally accepted graph preparation guidelines is to include properly formatted gridlines in graphs. Data Availability: Data are available from the author; however, request for data should specify the intended use

An Empirical Comparison of Accounting Information Representations (Research-in-Progress)

Information is often multidimensional, dynamic, and difficult to communicate using traditional representations such as verbal descriptions or even graphics. Taking a distributed cognition perspective and integrating several theories of visualization, this study formulates a theoretical model to examine the effects of information representation on a classic business decision-making task: bankruptcy prediction. The preliminary results from a laboratory experiment show that animated representations lead more accurate decisions than static graphs. The findings indicate that animation facilitates identification of the flows and problems in operating and financing processes, thereby improving subjects’ assessment of firm health

USE OF VISUALIZATION IN DIGITAL FINANCIAL REPORTING: THE EFFECT OF SPARKLINE

Information visualization (InfoViz) is an essential component of decision support systems (DSS). Sparklines is a visualization tool. This study examines if Sparklines in digital financial reports aids novice investors and if so under what circumstances? Does it enhances decision-making performance and facilitates effective decision-making experience? Additionally, does it lowers decision making effort; reduces dilution effect from non-relevant data in financial reports and mitigates recency bias in using digital financial reports? The hypothesis is guided by the theory of Proximity Compatibility Principle and the Theory of Cognitive Fit. The research methodology for this study is a repeated measure, controlled laboratory based experiment. A pilot test was conducted in with a sample of forty undergraduate students from Gatton College of Business and Economics. The sample size for this study was 275 subjects. The result revealed that there was significant effect of sparklines on decision making performance and it provides an incremental value over a tabular format. Sparklines makes an important contribution towards mitigating recency bias. The results also suggested that the irrelevant information cue in the shareholder’s report were not able to weaken the impact of relevant information in the audited financial data reported using sparklines. Sparklines increased the attention of the readers to the tables. Subjects performed the integrative tasks and spatial better when using Sparklines. For tasks such as symbolic tasks, Sparkline does not necessarily improve decision performance. It was also found out that decision makers experience greater satisfaction when using sparklines. The overall cognitive load experienced by subjects was lower using sparklines when task demands are high (such as in a bankruptcy prediction task). Interestingly, the results indicate that there is no significant effect of sparkline on decision confidence and time. In conclusion, recall of facts and pattern among subjects was found superior with use of sparkline. This study provides an empirical and justifiable basis for policy makers to make explicit recommendations about use of novel graphics such as sparkline in digital financial reports. Limitations of this study are noted

A review of data visualization: opportunities in manufacturing sequence management.

Data visualization now benefits from developments in technologies that offer innovative ways of presenting complex data. Potentially these have widespread application in communicating the complex information domains typical of manufacturing sequence management environments for global enterprises. In this paper the authors review the visualization functionalities, techniques and applications reported in literature, map these to manufacturing sequence information presentation requirements and identify the opportunities available and likely development paths. Current leading-edge practice in dynamic updating and communication with suppliers is not being exploited in manufacturing sequence management; it could provide significant benefits to manufacturing business. In the context of global manufacturing operations and broad-based user communities with differing needs served by common data sets, tool functionality is generally ahead of user application

Our ten years of work on transparet box business simulation

Traditional business games are of the so-called black-box type (BBBS=Black box business simulator); that is to say, the internal structure which generates the results of the simulation after decision-making is not known. As a result, the player normally operates by trial and error and bases his decisions on the symptoms of the problem (the observed behaviors of the system's variables) and not on the real causes of the problem (the system's structure). Since 1988 José A.D. Machuca has insisted that the business games based on System Dynamics models should be Transparent-box business simulators (TBBSs). That means that, during the game, the user has access to the structure of the underlying model and is able to relate it to the observed behaviors. The hypothesis is that such transparency would facilitate causal reflection and favor systemic learning of business problems. In 1990, the G.I.D.E.A.O. Research Group took action on this idea and centered one of its lines of research on this matter, with three main objectives: a) Creation of TBBSs, b) Introduction of TBBSs in undergraduate and graduate Management courses as well as in executive training, c) Experimentation in controlled environments in order to test the hypothesis mentioned in the above paragraph. Now, ten years after the birth of the idea, we would like to share in this paper the results obtained during that period

Telling the market story through organic information interaction design and broadcast media : submitted to the College of Creative Arts as requirement for the degree of Master of Design, Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand, 2007

Interaction Design, which is essentially story-creating and telling, is at once both and ancient art and a new technology. Media have always effected the telling of stories and the creation of experiences. (Shedroff, N., 1994, p. 2) Advances with visual representations within broadcast design have been applied to areas such as weather simulations, sporting events, and historical reconstruction's. However, financial market information presentation is fairly uniform in television news broadcasting, showing little progression in pace with other news information catego­ries. While stock market news segments make limited use of supporting graphics, addi­ tional information that may assist the viewer is filtered out, effecting viewers interest, understanding and decision making process often associated with market related stories. Research to date has been limited to single visualisations. There has been little re­search into the use of multiple information views that are composed to support news presentations. People use many different information sources on a daily basis. News sources are used to stay informed about events, to some sources, viewer evaluation of informa­tion is a part of that process. News information and other data commodity sources are now more accessible, allowing designers to look at ways of transforming them into new or improved information services. This research explores the display of stock market information by looking at ap­propriate media delivery methods combined with Organic Information Interaction Design to enhance information relationships. Organic Design and Information Inter­action Design 1 principles are combined. This denotes a 'living' relationship between elements, incorporating hierarchy principles with enhanced information delivery and user experiences. Four themes are tied together through the use of a conceptual prototype. [FROM INTRO

Visual analytics for supply network management: system design and evaluation

We propose a visual analytic system to augment and enhance decision-making processes of supply chain managers. Several design requirements drive the development of our integrated architecture and lead to three primary capabilities of our system prototype. First, a visual analytic system must integrate various relevant views and perspectives that highlight different structural aspects of a supply network. Second, the system must deliver required information on-demand and update the visual representation via user-initiated interactions. Third, the system must provide both descriptive and predictive analytic functions for managers to gain contingency intelligence. Based on these capabilities we implement an interactive web-based visual analytic system. Our system enables managers to interactively apply visual encodings based on different node and edge attributes to facilitate mental map matching between abstract attributes and visual elements. Grounded in cognitive fit theory, we demonstrate that an interactive visual system that dynamically adjusts visual representations to the decision environment can significantly enhance decision-making processes in a supply network setting. We conduct multi-stage evaluation sessions with prototypical users that collectively confirm the value of our system. Our results indicate a positive reaction to our system. We conclude with implications and future research opportunities.The authors would like to thank the participants of the 2015 Businessvis Workshop at IEEE VIS, Prof. Benoit Montreuil, and Dr. Driss Hakimi for their valuable feedback on an earlier version of the software; Prof. Manpreet Hora for assisting with and Georgia Tech graduate students for participating in the evaluation sessions; and the two anonymous reviewers for their detailed comments and suggestions. The study was in part supported by the Tennenbaum Institute at Georgia Tech Award # K9305. (K9305 - Tennenbaum Institute at Georgia Tech Award)Accepted manuscrip

Support for graphicacy: a review of textbooks available to accounting students

This Teaching Note reports on the support available in textbooks for graphicacy that will help students understand the complexities of graphical displays. Graphical displays play a significant role in financial reporting, and studies have found evidence of measurement distortion and selection bias. To understand the complexities of graphical displays, students need a sound understanding of graphicacy and support from the textbooks available to them to develop that understanding. The Teaching Note reports on a survey that examined the textbooks available to students attending two Scottish universities. The support of critical graphicacy skills was examined in conjunction with textbook characteristics. The survey, which was not restricted to textbooks designated as required reading, examined the textbooks for content on data measurement and graphical displays. The findings highlight a lack of support for graphicacy in the textbooks selected. The study concludes that accounting educators need to scrutinize more closely the selection of textbooks and calls for more extensive research into textbooks as a pedagogic tool

'Datafication': Making sense of (big) data in a complex world

This is a pre-print of an article published in European Journal of Information Systems. The definitive publisher-authenticated version is available at the link below. Copyright @ 2013 Operational Research Society Ltd.No abstract available (Editorial