What is Interaction for Data Visualization?

International audienceInteraction is fundamental to data visualization, but what "interaction" means in the context of visualization is ambiguous and confusing. We argue that this confusion is due to a lack of consensual definition. To tackle this problem, we start by synthesizing an inclusive view of interaction in the visualization community-including insights from information visualization, visual analytics and scientific visualization, as well as the input of both senior and junior visualization researchers. Once this view takes shape, we look at how interaction is defined in the field of human-computer interaction (HCI). By extracting commonalities and differences between the views of interaction in visualization and in HCI, we synthesize a definition of interaction for visualization. Our definition is meant to be a thinking tool and inspire novel and bolder interaction design practices. We hope that by better understanding what interaction in visualization is and what it can be, we will enrich the quality of interaction in visualization systems and empower those who use them

VeLight:A 3D virtual reality tool for CT-based anatomy teaching and training

Abstract: For doctors and other medical professionals, the human body is the focus of their daily practice. A solid understanding of how it is built up, that is, the anatomy of the human body, is essential to ensure safe medical practice. Current anatomy education takes place either using text books or via dissecting human cadavers, with text books being the most traditional way to learn anatomy due to the cost of the alternatives. However, printed media offer only a 2D perception of a part of the human body. Although dissection of human cadavers can give a more direct observation and interaction with human bodies, it is extremely costly because of the need of preserving human bodies and maintaining dissection rooms. To solve this issue, we developed VeLight, a system with which students can learn anatomy based on CT datasets using a 3D Virtual Reality display (zSpace). VeLight offers simple and intuitive interactions, and allows teachers to design their own courses using their own material. The system offers an interactive, depth-perceptive learning experience and improves the learning process. We conducted an informal user study to validate the effectiveness of VeLight. The results show that participants were able to learn and remember how to work with VeLight very quickly. All participants reported enthusiasm for the potential of VeLight in the domain of medical education. Graphic Abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.

Position Paper: Collaborative Gamification Design for Scientific Software

Gamification, a design trend that is extensively applied to education and citizen science, is regarded as a means to improve scientific software usability. However, development and use of scientific software have special needs and characteristics that might present design challenges. Our position is that gamifi-cation and usability design for scientific software should be facilitated by an open, collaborative design process supported by conversational media. We believe this approach is compatible with qualities often attributed to computational science community re-garding openness and collaboration between members of varied professional backgrounds. Through an illustrative scenario, we ex-emplify the use of conversational media for collaborative design. We expect the synergy between collaborators to result in better us-ability, greater user acceptance, and adequacy to requirements, obtaining optimal design solutions in a sustainable way

Data Visualization on Interactive Surfaces: A Research Agenda

International audienceInteractive tabletops and surfaces provide rich opportunities for data visualization and analysis, and consequently are used increasingly in such settings. In this article we discuss the potential benefits of using interactive surface platforms for visualization applications and present a research agenda of some of the most pressing research challenges in this space. The agenda emerged from discussions with researchers and practitioners in human-computer interaction, computer-supported collaborative work, and a wide variety of visualization fields at the DEXIS 2011 workshop on "Data Exploration for Interactive Surface

An integrated visualization environment for the virtual observatory: Current status and future directions

Visual exploration and discovery applications are invaluable tools to provide prompt and intuitive insights into the intrinsic data characteristics of modern astronomy and astrophysics datasets. Due to the massively large and highly complex datasets, various technical challenges are involved to reach, e.g. interactivity, integration, navigation and collaboration. This paper describes a number of approaches to address these challenges, and focuses on the current status of VisIVO (Visualization Interface for the Virtual Observatory) concentrating on the provided tools ranging from a desktop application to a science gateway and a mobile application. We emphasize the latest developments made in the context of past and current international European funded projects and highlight planned future developments towards further integration within the framework of the Virtual Observatory

The Lens of the Lab: Design Challenges in Scientific Software

Playful and gameful design could improve the quality of scientific software. However, literature about gamification methods for that particular type of software is presently scarce. As an effort to fill that gap, this paper introduces a set of design challenges and opportunities that should be informative to professionals approaching the area. This research is based on literature review on scientific software development, also contemplating material on the gamification of science, software, and work. From the gathered information, we identify, map, and discuss key aspects of development and use of professional scientific software. Those findings are, then, formatted as a Design Lens—a set of questions designers should ask themselves to gain insight, from a particular perspective, on their work. We propose the Lens of the Lab as a design lens to support designers working in collaboration with scientists and software engineers in professional scientific software initiatives

Interaction for Immersive Analytics

International audienceIn this chapter, we briefly review the development of natural user interfaces and discuss their role in providing human-computer interaction that is immersive in various ways. Then we examine some opportunities for how these technologies might be used to better support data analysis tasks. Specifically, we review and suggest some interaction design guidelines for immersive analytics. We also review some hardware setups for data visualization that are already archetypal. Finally, we look at some emerging system designs that suggest future directions

Interações de toque e de caneta para visualizações de dados em tablets

Atualmente, a análise e a manipulação de dados são fundamentais para os trabalhadores do conhecimento. Assim sendo, torna-se crucial desenvolver interações para a visualização de dados, de modo a alavancar as capacidades de análise e a melhorar os fluxos de trabalho. Tais interações podem ser compostas por interações de toque e de caneta. Esta dissertação propõe um método de interação para visualizações de dados: a interação bimanual de toque e de caneta. Para este método de interação foram desenvolvidas quatro ações. Estas ações são reconhecidas por uma aplicação que converte as ações do utilizador em reações nas visualizações de dados. Fez-se um pequeno estudo de bibliotecas de visualização, no qual avaliou-se as bibliotecas amCharts, AnyChart, D3.js, LargeVis e VTK. Este sistema e os métodos de interação desenvolvidos foram alvo de um processo de avaliação, a partir do qual foi possível avaliar a viabilidade deste tipo de interação neste contexto. Foi possível determinar que este tipo de interação é praticamente igual em termos de análise das visualizações, mas que apresenta uma menor usabilidade e um maior tempo para realizar as tarefas, quando comparada com a interação com o rato e o teclado.Nowadays, data analysis and manipulation are fundamental for data analysts and other people that analyse data at their jobs. As such, it becomes crucial to develop interactions for data visualization in such a way that it leverages the capabilities of analysis and increasing workflow. These interactions can be comprised of pen and touch based interactions. This dissertation proposes an interaction method for information visualization: the pen and touch bimanual interaction. For this method of interaction, it was developed four actions. These actions are recognized by an application that converts the actions performed by the user into reactions on the data visualization. Furthermore, a small evaluation of data visualization libraries was conducted, in which the libraries: amCharts, AnyChart, D3.js, LargeVis and VTK were evaluated. The developed system and its interactions underwent a user study, after which it was possible to evaluate the viability of this type of interactions in the context of information visualization. It was possible to determine that this type of interaction is practically the same in the analysis of the data visualizations but has a lower level of usability and an increased time to complete tasks when compared with mouse and keyboard interaction

Visual representation of cellular networks

Development of advanced techniques for biological network visualisation is crucial for successful progress in the areas of systems-level biology and data-intensive bioinformatics. However, current techniques for biological network visualisation fall short of expectations for representing extensive biological networks. In order to provide really useful network visualisation tools, new approaches have to be proposed and applied alongside with those most powerful features of current visualisation systems. The resulting representation techniques have to be tested by applying to large-scale examples that would include metabolic, signaling and gene expression events. User survey should also be carried out to further prove the advantages of the new techniques. The present thesis describes an attempt to achieve the above objectives, by performing the following steps: 1) existing approaches in the area of network representation were analyzed and their shortcomings and advantages were defined; 2) new notation has been developed, in which, the defined best features of the existing systems were integrated with newly introduced potent features such as compact visualization, ‘functional gate’ and ‘identity gate’, 4) new framework was developed that allows managing large-scale networks that are represented on different levels of details and different levels of constrains, while keeping each diagram semantically unambiguous, 5) extensive examples, including genome-scaled human metabolic network and TNF-alpha receptor signalling network, were used to prove that the designed notation and the framework can be applied efficiently, and, finally, 6) a notation survey has been carried out to validate the advantages of the newly developed notation over the existing ones

The State of the Art of Spatial Interfaces for 3D Visualization

International audienceWe survey the state of the art of spatial interfaces for 3D visualization. Interaction techniques are crucial to data visualization processes and the visualization research community has been calling for more research on interaction for years. Yet, research papers focusing on interaction techniques, in particular for 3D visualization purposes, are not always published in visualization venues, sometimes making it challenging to synthesize the latest interaction and visualization results. We therefore introduce a taxonomy of interaction technique for 3D visualization. The taxonomy is organized along two axes: the primary source of input on the one hand and the visualization task they support on the other hand. Surveying the state of the art allows us to highlight specific challenges and missed opportunities for research in 3D visualization. In particular, we call for additional research in: (1) controlling 3D visualization widgets to help scientists better understand their data, (2) 3D interaction techniques for dissemination, which are under-explored yet show great promise for helping museum and science centers in their mission to share recent knowledge, and (3) developing new measures that move beyond traditional time and errors metrics for evaluating visualizations that include spatial interaction