Applying a User-centred Approach to Interactive Visualization Design

Analysing users in their context of work and finding out how and why they use different information resources is essential to provide interactive visualisation systems that match their goals and needs. Designers should actively involve the intended users throughout the whole process. This chapter presents a user-centered approach for the design of interactive visualisation systems. We describe three phases of the iterative visualisation design process: the early envisioning phase, the global specification hase, and the detailed specification phase. The whole design cycle is repeated until some criterion of success is reached. We discuss different techniques for the analysis of users, their tasks and domain. Subsequently, the design of prototypes and evaluation methods in visualisation practice are presented. Finally, we discuss the practical challenges in design and evaluation of collaborative visualisation environments. Our own case studies and those of others are used throughout the whole chapter to illustrate various approaches

Researcher-led teaching:embodiment of academic practice

This paper explores the embodied practices of leading researchers(and/or leading scholars/practitioners), suggesting that distinctive‘researcher-led teaching’ depends on educators who are willing and able to be their research in the teaching setting. We advocate an approach to the development of higher education pedagogy which makes lead-researchers the objects of inquiry and we summarise case study analyses (in neuroscience and humanities) where the knowledge-making‘signatures’ of academic leaders are used to exhibit the otherwise hidden identities of research. We distinguish between learning readymade knowledge and the process of knowledge in the making and point towards the importance of inquiry in the flesh. We develop a view of higher education teaching that depends upon academic status a priori, but we argue that this stance is inclusive because it has the propensity to locate students as participants in academic culture

On not defining drawing

This paper will trace the development of a notation research experiment aimed at developing a scoring system for silence. Silence has kinetic roles in social exchanges: quietude, reflective pauses, withdrawal, displays of consent or dissent, reception and interpretation. But how can we score something not present, yet also not absent? Is there a positive notation for this critical issue of performance, of silence in the voice, other than merely the courtesies of extended rests, or blanks in the score? The reader will see inscriptions that oscillate between pictures and writing, and between visual and auditory, exemplifying those capacities of drawing to operate in the spaces between languages. In the context of an experimental music notation, seeking to make an instrumental gesture of silence, how can we draw incipience

Insomnia : the affordance of hybrid media in visualising a sleep disorder

The integration of visual and numerical abstraction in contemporary audio-visual communication has become increasingly prevalent. This increase reflects the evolution of computational machines from simple data processors. Computation and interface have augmented our senses and converged algorithmic logic with cultural techniques to form hybrid channels of communication. These channels are fluid and mutable, allowing creatives to explore and disseminate knowledge through iterative media practice. Insomnia is an auto-ethnographic case study that examines the affordance of merging Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) and node- based programming software (TouchDesigner), as a hybrid media system (McMullan, 2020). As a system, Insomnia compiles my archived brain activity data and processes it through a custom designed generative visualisation interface. Documenting and ‘processing’ a sleep disorder is filtered through key concepts of media archaeology, cultural techniques, and practice-led research allowing Insomnia to inform discussion of the affordance of hybrid media. Insomnia is presented as a virtual exhibition with a supporting exegesis. The methodology and outcomes of the project form a framework that bridges science communication and creative practice and points to continued development for interactive installation design

Confessions of a live coder

This paper describes the process involved when a live coder decides to learn a new musical programming language of another paradigm. The paper introduces the problems of running comparative experiments, or user studies, within the field of live coding. It suggests that an autoethnographic account of the process can be helpful for understanding the technological conditioning of contemporary musical tools. The author is conducting a larger research project on this theme: the part presented in this paper describes the adoption of a new musical programming environment, Impromptu, and how this affects the author’s musical practice

Designing Digital Methods to monitor and inform Urban Policy. The case of Paris and its Urban Nature initiative.

The reconciliation of nature and the urban space is worldwide considered among the smart solutions to a growing range of issues created by urban growth. But there is no agreement on the imaginaries and technical practices that should be included into the new urban nature. To address the specific case of the city Paris and its big re-naturation project, to observe, monitor and, eventually, produce elements of reflections for future urban policies, in the NATURPRADI project has been conducted a Digital Methods campaign. It is aimed at mapping the symbolic and material elements of the urban nature debate by asking specific research questions: Which images, discourses and practices narrate urban nature? by whom and what are they sustained? After having detailed the methodological aspect of the research, we critically discuss how the result of the Digital Methods campaign could constitute a strategy to address simultaneously citizens and institutions alike, and provide them with tools to navigate through the issue and imagine future public policies

Examining the Contribution of Critical Visualisation to Information Security

This paper examines the use of visualisations in the field of information security and in particular focuses on the practice of information security risk assessment. We examine the current roles of information security visualisations and place these roles in the wider information visualisation discourse.\ud We present an analytic lens which divides visualisations into three categories: journalistic, scientic and critical visualisations. We then present a case study that uses these three categories of visualisations to further support information security practice.\ud Two signicant results emerge from this case study: (1) visualisations that promote critical thinking and reflection (a form of critical visualisation) support the multi-stakeholder nature of risk assessment and (2) a preparatory stage in risk assessment is sometimes needed by service designers in order to establish the service design before conducting a formal risk assessment.\ud The reader is invited to explore the images in the digital version of this paper where they can zoom in to particular aspects of the images and view the images in colour

AIRBORNE LASER SCANNING AND LANDSCAPE ARCHAEOLOGY

Airborne lidar (Light Detection And Ranging), ALS or ALSM (Airborne Laser Scanning, Airborne Laser Swath Mapping) is an active remote sensing tech- nique, which records the surface of the earth using laser scanning. ALS allows very precise three-dimensional mapping of the surface of the earth, producing high-resolution topographic data, even where surface is obscured by forest and vegetation. The level of detail on digital surface and terrain models produced from high resolution ALS topographic data helps us enormously in identification of past events, which re- worked and modified the surface of the earth. However, interpretation of ALS data poses much more than technical challenges. ALS does not provide only a layer of data, but offers a different view of land- scape. What kind of landscapes do we see with ALS

Speculative metaphors: a design-led approach to the visualisation of library collections

We are at a critical moment when a library patron’s first, and sometimes only, point of access to library collections is an interface. The relationship we have with physical collections can not be discounted but it also can not be re-created within the screen space. There is a need to understand not only how interfaces operate and how they can be ‘usable’ but also how they shape our relationship with library collections. There is a need to understand how dominant orders of classification are reinforced through their visual representation within collection interfaces and how this shapes the way in which we come to know things. Johanna Drucker notes: “Digital technology depends on visual presentation for much of its effectiveness…but critical understanding of visual knowledge production remains oddly underdeveloped”. We have an opportunity to rethink how we encounter collections through the physical act of browsing and through an interface; an opportunity that is not being addressed. What does each of these experiences afford? How can we reimagine the library collection? In this dissertation I will explore these opportunities through a practice-based approach to the development of a set of speculative prototypes. I will seek to re-imagine the collection through an exploration of the role of metaphor in the visual language of library interfaces and our experience of library collections