Experiences in involving analysts in visualisation design

Involving analysts in visualisation design has obvious benefits, but the knowledge-gap between domain experts ("analysts") and visualisation designers ("designers") often makes the degree of their involvement fall short of that aspired. By promoting a culture of mutual learning, understanding and contribution between both analysts and designers from the outset, participants can be raised to a level at which all can usefully contribute to both requirement definition and design. We describe the process we use to do this for tightly-scoped and short design exercises -- with meetings/workshops, iterative bursts of design/prototyping over relatively short periods of time, and workplace-based evaluation -- illustrating this with examples of our own experience from recent work with bird ecologists

Exploring Uncertainty in Geodemographics with Interactive Graphics

Geodemographic classifiers characterise populations by categorising geographical areas according to the demographic and lifestyle characteristics of those who live within them. The dimension-reducing quality of such classifiers provides a simple and effective means of characterising population through a manageable set of categories, but inevitably hides heterogeneity, which varies within and between the demographic categories and geographical areas, sometimes systematically. This may have implications for their use, which is widespread in government and commerce for planning, marketing and related activities. We use novel interactive graphics to delve into OAC – a free and open geodemographic classifier that classifies the UK population in over 200,000 small geographical areas into 7 super-groups, 21 groups and 52 sub-groups. Our graphics provide access to the original 41 demographic variables used in the classification and the uncertainty associated with the classification of each geographical area on-demand. It also supports comparison geographically and by category. This serves the dual purpose of helping understand the classifier itself leading to its more informed use and providing a more comprehensive view of population in a comprehensible manner. We assess the impact of these interactive graphics on experienced OAC users who explored the details of the classification, its uncertainty and the nature of between – and within – class variation and then reflect on their experiences. Visualization of the complexities and subtleties of the classification proved to be a thought-provoking exercise both confirming and challenging users’ understanding of population, the OAC classifier and the way it is used in their organisations. Users identified three contexts for which the techniques were deemed useful in the context of local government, confirming the validity of the proposed methods

Configuring Hierarchical Layouts to Address Research Questions

We explore the effects of selecting alternative layouts in hierarchical displays that show multiple aspects of large multivariate datasets, including spatial and temporal characteristics. Hierarchical displays of this type condition a dataset by multiple discrete variable values, creating nested graphical summaries of the resulting subsets in which size, shape and colour can be used to show subset properties. These 'small multiples' are ordered by the conditioning variable values and are laid out hierarchically using dimensional stacking. Crucially, we consider the use of different layouts at different hierarchical levels, so that the coordinates of the plane can be used more effectively to draw attention to trends and anomalies in the data. We argue that these layouts should be informed by the type of conditioning variable and by the research question being explored. We focus on space-filling rectangular layouts that provide data-dense and rich overviews of data to address research questions posed in our exploratory analysis of spatial and temporal aspects of property sales in London. We develop a notation ('HiVE') that describes visualisation and layout states and provides reconfiguration operators, demonstrate its use for reconfiguring layouts to pursue research questions and provide guidelines for this process. We demonstrate how layouts can be related through animated transitions to reduce the cognitive load associated with their reconfiguration whilst supporting the exploratory process

Visualizing the dynamics of London's bicycle hire scheme

Visualizing flows between origins and destinations can be straightforward when dealing with small numbers of journeys or simple geographies. Representing flows as lines embedded in geographic space has commonly been used to map transport flows, especially when geographic patterns are important as they are when characterising cities or managing transportation. However, for larger numbers of flows, this approach requires careful design to avoid problems of occlusion, salience bias and information overload. Driven by the requirements identified by users and managers of the London Bicycle Hire scheme we present three methods of representation of bicycle hire use and travel patterns. Flow maps with curved flow symbols are used to show overviews in flow structures. Gridded views of docking station location that preserve geographic relationships are used to explore docking station status over space and time in a graphically efficient manner. Origin-Destination maps that visualise the OD matrix directly while maintaining geographic context are used to provide visual details on demand. We use these approaches to identify changes in travel behaviour over space and time, to aid station rebalancing and to provide a framework for incorporating travel modelling and simulation

Designing visual analytics systems for disease spread and evolution: VAST 2010 mini challenge 2 and 3 award: Good overall design and analysis

Using two of the VAST 2010 mini challenges as a case study, we report on the design decisions and software development process used to create visual analytics software for understanding disease spread and mutation. The software we developed and the analysis conducted attempted to help us understand (a) how a fictitious disease may have spread between selected cities around the globe; and (b) how genetic sequences taken from infected patients may be used to chart the evolution of the disease and changes in its severity, drug resistance and other characteristics

Using treemaps for variable selection in spatio-temporal visualisation

We demonstrate and reflect upon the use of enhanced treemaps that incorporate spatial and temporal ordering for exploring a large multivariate spatio-temporal data set. The resulting data-dense views summarise and simultaneously present hundreds of space-, time-, and variable-constrained subsets of a large multivariate data set in a structure that facilitates their meaningful comparison and supports visual analysis. Interactive techniques allow localised patterns to be explored and subsets of interest selected and compared with the spatial aggregate. Spatial variation is considered through interactive raster maps and high-resolution local road maps. The techniques are developed in the context of 42.2 million records of vehicular activity in a 98 km(2) area of central London and informally evaluated through a design used in the exploratory visualisation of this data set. The main advantages of our technique are the means to simultaneously display hundreds of summaries of the data and to interactively browse hundreds of variable combinations with ordering and symbolism that are consistent and appropriate for space- and time- based variables. These capabilities are difficult to achieve in the case of spatio-temporal data with categorical attributes using existing geovisualisation methods. We acknowledge limitations in the treemap representation but enhance the cognitive plausibility of this popular layout through our two-dimensional ordering algorithm and interactions. Patterns that are expected (e.g. more traffic in central London), interesting (e.g. the spatial and temporal distribution of particular vehicle types) and anomalous (e.g. low speeds on particular road sections) are detected at various scales and locations using the approach. In many cases, anomalies identify biases that may have implications for future use of the data set for analyses and applications. Ordered treemaps appear to have potential as interactive interfaces for variable selection in spatio-temporal visualisation. Information Visualization (2008) 7, 210-224. doi: 10.1057/palgrave.ivs.950018

Rethinking Map Legends with Visualization

This design paper presents new guidance for creating map legends in a dynamic environment. Our contribution is a set of guidelines for legend design in a visualization context and a series of illustrative themes through which they may be expressed. These are demonstrated in an applications context through interactive software prototypes. The guidelines are derived from cartographic literature and in liaison with EDINA who provide digital mapping services for UK tertiary education. They enhance approaches to legend design that have evolved for static media with visualization by considering: selection, layout, symbols, position, dynamism and design and process. Broad visualization legend themes include: The Ground Truth Legend, The Legend as Statistical Graphic and The Map is the Legend. Together, these concepts enable us to augment legends with dynamic properties that address specific needs, rethink their nature and role and contribute to a wider re-evaluation of maps as artifacts of usage rather than statements of fact. EDINA has acquired funding to enhance their clients with visualization legends that use these concepts as a consequence of this work. The guidance applies to the design of a wide range of legends and keys used in cartography and information visualization

Socio-economic determinants of selected dietary indicators in British pre-school children

Objectives: To assess the proportion of pre-school children meeting reference nutrient intakes (RNIs) and recommendations for daily intakes of iron, zinc, vitamins C and A, and energy from non-milk extrinsic sugars. To assess whether meeting these five dietary requirements was related to a series of socio-economic variables.Design: Secondary analysis of data on daily consumption of foods and drinks from the National Diet and Nutrition Survey (NDNS) of children aged 1.5-4.5 years based on 4-day weighed intakes.Subjects: One thousand six hundred and seventy-five British pre-school children aged 1.5-4.5 years in 1993.Results: Only 1% of children met all five RNIs/recommendations examined; 76% met only two or fewer. Very few children met the recommendations for intakes of zinc (aged over four years) and non-milk extrinsic sugars (all ages). The number of RNIs/ recommendations met was related to measures of socio-economic class. Children from families in Scotland and the North of England, who had a manual head of household and whose mothers had fewest qualifications, met the least number of RNIs/recommendations.Conclusions: Very few pre-school children have diets that meet all the RNIs and recommendations for iron, zinc, vitamins C and A, and energy from non-milk extrinsic sugars. Dietary adequacy with respect to these five parameters is related to socio-economic factors. The findings emphasise the need for a range of public health policies that focus upon the social and economic determinants of food choice within families