Combining Multiple View Components for Exploratory Visualization

The analysis of structured complex data, such as clustered graph based datasets, usually applies a variety of visual representation techniques and formats. The majority of currently available tools and approaches to exploratory visualization are built on integrated schemes for simultaneous displaying of multiple aspects of studying objects and processes. Usually, such schemes partition screen space that is composed of multiple views and adopt interaction patterns to focus on data-driven items. Widely known concepts as overview plus-detail and focus-plus-context are ambiguous in interpretation by means of technical terms. Therefore, their implementation by UI design practitioners need reviews and a classification of the basic approaches to visual composition of graphical representation modules. We propose a description of basic components of the view and focus and an overview of their multiple combinations

Bridging Objective and Subjective Evaluations in Data Visualization: A Crossover Experiment

One of the problems affecting evaluation in the design and adoption of HCI technology is that neither objective nor subjective measures are sufficient when taken alone or individually. This paper proposes a crossover approach, making sense of objective and subjective evaluation methods by hypothesizing them as constitutive of each other’s explanation. Objective image features borrowed from image processing may explain or being explained in terms of validated qualitative items for infographics value-in-use and qualitative labelling from users’ interaction. These methods are all applied to the evaluation of a small set of Data Vizualizations (Data Viz from now on). Image features are computed first, in order to provide a varied-features Data Viz selection from researchers; the subjective part of the evaluation is accomplished by the 98 participants of an experiment, who interacted with pairs of Data Viz by executing a task, then using the validated items of the Infographics-Value (IGV) short scale, and adding free qualitative comments. Crossing over these dimensions shows that: a high feature congestion in a Data Viz can hinder its perceived intuitiveness and clarity; a poorly distributed saliency may impact intuitiveness and clarity too; a high colorfulness may influence the perceived beauty; both saliency and colorfulness may impact on the perceived usefulness, informativity, and beauty. Furthermore, colorfulness can improve or worsen the perceived overall quality of design and quality of interaction when used and combined with feature congestion; and saliency may improve or worsen the perceived beauty when interacting with colorfulness. These results show how objective and subjective evaluations may be exploited as each other’s explanations for improving the evaluation process during both design and user experience with Data Viz. Based on this experiment, the importance of crossing-over quantitative and qualitative Data Viz evaluation is argued, and motivations to the exploitation of a combination of approaches instead of the application of one approach alone are supported. This contribution intends to lead towards a holistic Data Viz quality assessment method, able to provide a virtuous cycle enforcing both quantitative and qualitative approaches during all the phases of a Data Viz evaluation life

Empowering CH experts to produce IoT-enhanced visits

This demo presents EFESTO-5W, a platform for the definition of IoT-enhanced visits to Cultural-Heritage (CH) sites. Its main characteristic is an End-User Development paradigm applied to the IoT technologies and customized for the CH domain, which allows different stakeholders to configure the behavior of smart objects for creating more engaging visit experiences

Empowering CH experts to produce IoT-enhanced visits

This demo presents EFESTO-5W, a platform for the definition of IoT-enhanced visits to Cultural-Heritage (CH) sites. Its main characteristic is an End-User Development paradigm applied to the IoT technologies and customized for the CH domain, which allows different stakeholders to configure the behavior of smart objects for creating more engaging visit experiences

IGV Short Scale to Assess Implicit Value of Visualizations through Explicit Interaction

This paper reports the assessment of the infographics-value (IGV) short scale, designed to measure the value in the use of infographics. The scale was made to assess the implicit quality dimensions of infographics. These dimensions were experienced during the execution of tasks in a contextualized scenario. Users were asked to retrieve a piece of information by explicitly interacting with the infographics. After usage, they were asked to rate quality dimensions of infographics, namely, usefulness, intuitiveness, clarity, informativity, and beauty; the overall value perceived from interacting with infographics was also included in the survey. Each quality dimension was coded as a six-point rating scale item, with overall value included. The proposed IGV short scale model was validated with 650 people. Our analysis confirmed that all considered dimensions in our scale were independently significant and contributed to assessing the implicit value of infographics. The IGV short scale is a lightweight but exhaustive tool to rapidly assess the implicit value of an explicit interaction with infographics in daily tasks, where value in use is crucial to measuring the situated effectiveness of visual tools. View Full-Tex

Exploring Archaeological Parks by Playing Games on Mobile Devices

Explore! is an m-learning system that combining e-learning and mobile computing allows middle school students to interact with learning materials in different ways while playing a game in an archaeological park. Design is based on user-centred and participatory approaches. The evaluation of Explore! through systematic field studies has shown that it is able to transform the visit to archaeological parks into a more complete and culturally rich experience. Thanks to the generality of the software infrastructure, games to be played in different parks can be easily created; to this aim, an Authoring Tool to be used by history experts and/or teachers has been developed

User-defined semantics for the design of IoT systems enabling smart interactive experiences

© The Author(s) 2020. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.Automation in computing systems has always been considered a valuable solution to unburden the user. Internet of Things (IoT) technology best suits automation in different domains, such as home automation, retail, industry, and transportation, to name but a few. While these domains are strongly characterized by implicit user interaction, more recently, automation has been adopted also for the provision of interactive and immersive experiences that actively involve the users. IoT technology thus becomes the key for Smart Interactive Experiences (SIEs), i.e., immersive automated experiences created by orchestrating different devices to enable smart environments to fluidly react to the final users’ behavior. There are domains, e.g., cultural heritage, where these systems and the SIEs can support and provide several benefits. However, experts of such domains, while intrigued by the opportunity to induce SIEs, are facing tough challenges in their everyday work activities when they are required to automate and orchestrate IoT devices without the necessary coding skills. This paper presents a design approach that tries to overcome these difficulties thanks to the adoption of ontologies for defining Event-Condition-Action rules. More specifically, the approach enables domain experts to identify and specify properties of IoT devices through a user-defined semantics that, being closer to the domain experts’ background, facilitates them in automating the IoT devices behavior. We also present a study comparing three different interaction paradigms conceived to support the specification of user-defined semantics through a “transparent” use of ontologies. Based on the results of this study, we work out some lessons learned on how the proposed paradigms help domain experts express their semantics, which in turn facilitates the creation of interactive applications enabling SIEs.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

The cut-off value for classifying active Italian children using the corresponding national version of the physical activity questionnaire

The present study aimed to determine a cut-off value following the filling in of a questionnaire (PAQ-C-It) to identify active Italian children. One-hundred-twenty-nine primary school children (5 Piedmont schools; 47.3% female; mean age = 10 ± 1 years) wore an accelerometer (Actigraph wGT3X-BT) to objectively quantify individual moderate-to-vigorous physical activity during one week. Afterwards, the PAQ-C-It was filled in by participants. A ROC curve procedure was applied to obtain an active/non-active cut-off point. Spearman's correlation coefficient was also applied to establish the relationship between the two parameters. According to the ROC analysis, the PAQ-C-It cut-off point value is identifiable at >2.75 to indicate active children (area under the curve = 0.62; standard error = 0.05; p = 0.025; coefficient intervals = 0.518-0.716; sensitivity = 0.592, specificity = 0.382), determining that 65 participants (55%) were non-active (mean PAQ-C-It value = 2.3 ± 0.4; active mean PAQ-C-It value = 3.3 ± 0.4). Spearman's correlation coefficient results were significant but with a small effect size (rho = 0.214; p = 0.008). In conclusion, the present results suggest that the PAQ-C-It can be cautiously used as tool to practically classify active Italian children because of a non-solid relationship between respective accelerometer data and MVPA daily data

Representable AI: Towards a Unified View of Core Dimensions for a Visual Framework

International audienceData visualization made of multiple visualization techniques, e.g., dashboards and small multiples, is taking the scene as data, AI algorithms and their analysis are becoming more complex and articulated. However, still too little is said about what are the core dimensions of these interactions that may contribute to characterize visualization techniques orchestration in scenarios where humans and AI work together and communicate through visual languages, and what is the differential in complexity with respect to single charts interaction. Depending on such dimensions, their level, and their combination, interaction may require a cognitively growing effort. The present study aims at giving a unified view of complex visual frameworks in order to identify the invariants of visualization techniques characterization, and proposes a group of necessary and sufficient dimensions emerging when visualization techniques are the focus of the design and may be the focus of interaction between humans and AI. The paper identifies and discusses these dimensions, starting from the literature, and giving a characterization of each of them in terms of constituent levels. The framework may be applied to analysis of a range of data visualization tools and approaches, towards their concrete application to a distributed visual cognition framework where humans-AI interactions will take place

Digital interaction: where are we going?

In the framework of the AVI 2018 Conference, the interuniversity center ECONA has organized a thematic workshop on "Digital Interaction: where are we going?". Six contributions from the ECONA members investigate different perspectives around this thematic