Dykes, J.

Radburn, R.

Wood, J.

English

City Research Online

Wood, J., Radburn, R. & Dykes, J. (2010). vizLib: Using The Seven Stages of Visualization to Explore Population Trends and Processes in Local Authority Research. Paper presented at the GIS Research UK 18th Annual Conference, 14 - 16 Apr 2010, University College London, London, UK.City Research OnlineOriginal citation: Wood, J., Radburn, R. & Dykes, J. (2010). vizLib: Using The Seven Stages of Visualization to Explore Population Trends and Processes in Local Authority Research. Paper presented at the GIS Research UK 18th Annual Conference, 14 - 16 Apr 2010, University College London, London, UK.Permanent City Research Online URL: http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/416/ Copyright & reuseCity  University  London has developed City  Research Online  so that  its  users  may access the research outputs of City University London's staff. Copyright © and Moral Rights for this paper are retained by the individual author(s) and/ or other copyright holders. Users may download and/ or print one  copy  of  any  article(s)  in  City  Research  Online  to  facilitate  their  private  study  or  for  non-commercial research. Users may not engage in further distribution of the material or use it for any profit-making activities or any commercial gain. All material in City Research Online is checked for eligibility for copyright before being made available in the live archive. URLs from City Research Online may be freely distributed and linked to from other web pages. Versions of researchThe version in City Research Online may differ from the final published version. Users are advised to check the Permanent City Research Online URL above for the status of the paper.EnquiriesIf you have any enquiries about any aspect of City Research Online, or if you wish to make contact  with the author(s) of this paper, please email the team at publications@city.ac.uk.vizLib: Developing Capacity for Exploratory Data Analysis in  Local Government – Visualization of Library Customer Behaviour  Robert Radburn, Jason Dykes, Jo Wood  giCentre, School of Informatics, City University London, EC1V 0HB  Telephone:  +44 (0)20 7040 0212, Fax: +44 (0)20 7040 8584 E : {sbbd476 | jad7 | jwo} @soi.city.ac.uk, W : http://www.soi.city.ac.uk/~ {sbbd476 | jad7 | jwo}  KEYWORDS : libraries, local authority, exploratory data analysis, visualization Processing   1. Introduction  A growing public expectation for better local services and a new local government performance framework (The Audit Commission, 2008) means that local authorities are increasingly needing to use their data holdings to understand citizens. ‘Strong and Prosperous Communities’ (DLCG, 2006) requires all local authorities to demonstrate that they understand their communities by deploying their local administrative data. The systematic analysis of large structured spatio-temporal data sets is difficult, but Visualization and Visual Analytics (Thomas and Cook 2005) may provide solutions - the NVAC centres are supporting the visual exploration of geographic data in areas such as security and health (e.g. Bhowmick et al., 2008).   2. Context and Rationale  Leicestershire County Council provides services to more than 600,000 people. Its Research and Information Team uses rich innovative maps and graphics to inform evidence-based policy (e.g. Radburn, 2008). To extend this work researchers need access to visual techniques for integrating, synthesising and exploring large structured spatial data sets. Each has unique characteristics, and so generic packaged solutions can be inadequate (Fry, 2007). Alternatively, flexible visualization environments through which informative dynamic interfaces can be rapidly developed to suit the data and task in hand may empower local authority researchers in their analysis and improve the evidence base upon which decisions are made (Lloyd et al., 2008).  The skills required to use these technologies are rare in local authorities and data sources are typically unexplored at present. We address this skills gap through the ESRC funded UPTAP programme which supports researchers in developing data analysis skills with the aim of Understanding Population Trends and Processes. An UPTAP User Fellowship has  enabled an LCC researcher (Radburn) to work with City University for five months to develop the visualization skills required in an important service delivery area – Libraries. Emerging technologies and developing techniques are being used to exploit previously unexplored data stores and gain knowledge of population trends and processes in Leicestershire   3. Leicestershire Library Records  Libraries must be sensitive to the changing needs, aspirations and requirements of their users - a challenge in the face of budgetary pressures and changes in modern lifestyles. Leicestershire Library Service (LLS) routinely collect data about the 400,000 residents who are registered with their local library in the TALIS database - one of the most detailed data sets that the local authority possesses containing detailed customer behaviour and preferences (including lending records on books, films, and music) at 54 libraries across the county on a weekly basis.  4. Approach   Within the national libraries service readily available socio-economic data sources are used to profile communities (EMMLAC, 2005). But knowing your customer is different from understanding how they engage with the service. Just as supermarkets use data driven marketing techniques (Humby et al., 2003) the TALIS database could be used to understand which customers deliver what value and in what proportion through analysis of the spatio-temporal behaviour of library users.  LCC has already identified the utility of applying marketing techniques to a small sub-set of the TALIS database (Radburn et al., 2007) concluding that:   i. there was no such thing as an ‘average’ customer ii. the classic Pareto 80/20 rule held (Novos, 2004) iii. those who visited the library most recently are more likely to revisit  Analysing the data from all 54 libraries to see whether these characteristics are spatially variable could lead to information overload – hence the desire to use visualization to explore the following kinds of questions:  i. Who are the best customers using the library service? Which areas are they living in?  ii. How do priority groups use the library service? iii. Can the library database provide an up-to-date snapshot of the changing demographics of the local area?  To address these types of research questions through visualization the fellowship consists of three stages: skills development, the production of bespoke visualization prototypes and the communication of the results to relevant communities.   5. Preliminary Results  Our initial manipulation and visualization of the TALIS database has employed the high level open design tool Processing (Fry & Reas, 2007; Fry 2008). Processing encourages an exploratory approach to data visualization as code linking graphical methods can be quickly configured and deployed. Feedback is rapid and graphical so data can be visually queried very efficiently (Fry, 2008). For example, the total book lending for Leicestershire’s 15,000 postcodes can be quickly visualized with basic interactions to display useful information about the data in a short ‘sketch’ consisting of a few lines of Processing code (Figure 1).  The Processing environment is designed for small visualization projects consisting of a few pages of high level code that are rapidly modified as the process of visual enquiry progresses (Fry, 2008). Such sketches can be rapidly amended to show various characteristics of the data (Figure 2) and combine data from diverse sources (Figure 3). Useful snippets of code can be retained and incorporated to further simplify the process and ensure efficiency. For example a zoom function was added to the TALIS visualization from an emerging library of Processing functionality being developed at the giCentre. The learning curve involved in Processing is not a steep one and even these initial interactive graphics reveal complex spatial structure that has not been considered previously by LCC.    Figure 1. The structure of library usage in part of Leicestershire. Libraries are represented by shaded symbols sized according to annual loans.15,000 unit postcodes are sized according to annual loans in an interactive Processing application that zooms, pans and provides instant graphical details on demand.    Figure 2. Detail for part of Leicestershire selected through interactive functionality. Left - Symbol size and density reflects numbers of loans; Right – colour composites show proportions of loans in adult fiction (red), adult non-fiction (green) and other (blue) categories. An item of interest is interactively selected and detail provided through a rapidly responding and configurable graphical interface.     Figure 3. Further detail around Hinckley showing RGB colour composites and an OS LandRanger backdrop. © Crown Copyright / Database right 2008. An Ordnance Survey / EDINA supplied service.  When compared to alternative development environments such as Flash or SVG, Processing provides high levels of flexibility in an environment that has the advantages of  being based upon (and sometimes drawing directly upon) a fully functional and robust programming language (Java). This means that it is extremely quick and enables us to calculate the positions of symbols and draw them to screen rapidly enabling large datasets to be visualized and animated very effectively. Consequently we can explore TALIS by considering libraries and customer types through combinations of highly interactive implementations of bespoke and novel graphics.  These include: recency / frequency plots (Radburn et al., 2007) that segment behaviour and allow ‘best customers’ to be selected and library profiles to be compared; spider plots showing the spatial relationships between libraries and customer locations; spatial treemaps (Wood and Dykes, 2008) in which space-filling layouts are utilised to generate data-dense graphics.  These can be conditioned by time, type of loan and other characteristics in Processing in real time. Evidence that morphing is beneficial for transitioning between graphical alternatives (Heer and Robertson, 2007) has led us to use develop novel interactions that vary the visual parameters used in graphics and rapidly morph between combinations of these techniques. Figures 4 and 5 show examples.     Figure 4. – Interactions showing recency / frequency (RF) and spider plots. The former show numbers of users in recency (columns) / frequency (rows) quintiles, with most recent and frequent users at the top right. The ‘CHI comparison’ allows RF plots for interactively selected libraries to be compared, here revealing that Market Harborough has consistently fewer users in the low recency quintile and more recent / frequent customers. The latter link libraries with users (left) and vice versa (right).   Figure 5. – Fast animated transitions change spatial ordering from geographic coordinates in which RF plots overlap to a spatially ordered treemap in which they are distinguishable but retain some geography in their layout. The transition can be considered as ‘ordering’ and ‘visualization change’ in Heer and Robertson’s taxonomy.  6. Summary and Conclusion  The government is demanding that local authorities use local data more effectively and base decisions around customer behaviour. For library services a spatial approach to understanding users can help address the three questions that organisations need to answer when entering into a dialogue with customers (Novos, 2007):   • What will you say? • Who will you say it to? • When will you say it?  Visualization can help us answer these specific questions but the skill set required to develop and use flexible interactive graphical applications that suit particular combinations of data set and task (Andrienko et al., 2005) is rare in local authorities. The vizLib project is embedding geovisualization into an organisation through an investment in people and their skills, rather than the generation of software ‘solutions’ expected to fit all situations. Our initial work with Processing suggests that it is a promising approach for applied geovisualization that makes a number of novel and potentially useful visualization methods possible. Interesting trends have been noted and insights gained from our initial work as we compare libraries, customers and places and consider their spatial variation.   Acknowledgments:  This work is supported by an ESRC UPTAP User Fellowship RES-163-27-0017 and Leicestershire County Council. Data kindly provided by Leicestershire Library Service.   References:  Andrienko, G., Andrienko, N., Dykes, J., Mountain, D., Noy, P., Gahegan, M., et al. (2005). Creating Instruments for Ideation: Software Approaches to Geovisualization. In J. Dykes, A. MacEachren & M.-J. Kraak (Eds.), Exploring Geovisualization (pp. 103-125). Amsterdam: Elsevier. Bhowmick, T., Robinson, A. C., Gruver, A., MacEachren, A. M., & Lengerich, E. (2008). Distributed Usability Evaluation of the Pennsylvania Cancer Atlas. International Journal of Health Geographics, 7(6). Department for Communities and Local Government. (2006). Strong and prosperous communities: the local government white paper. Retrieved 12/12/08, from http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/cm69/6939/6939.asp East Midlands Museums Libraries and Archives Council. (2005). How to… Develop a Community Profile: A guide for museums, libraries and archives. Retrieved 12/12/08, from http://tinyurl.com/EMMLAC2005 Fry, B. (2008). Visualizing Data. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reily, 382 pp. Fry, B., & Reas, C. (2007). Processing: A Programming Handbook for Visual Designers and Artists. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 736 pp. Heer, J., and Robertson, G., 2007, Animated transitions in statistical data graphics: IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, v. 13, p. 1240-1247. Humby, C., Hunt, T., & Phillips, P. (2003). Scoring Points: How Tesco is winning customer loyalty: Kogan Page, 276 pp. Novos, J. (2004). Drilling down: Turning Customer data into profits with a spreadsheet: booklocker.com, 196 pp. Radburn, R. (2008). Understanding the Loughborough Foodscape. Leicester: Leicestershire County Council. Radburn, R., Thomas, N., Forster, P., & Pye, S. (2007). Beyond the comfort zone. Public Library Journal, 22(3), 20-23. The Audit Commission. (2008). Comprehensive Area Assessment Joint Inspectorate Proposals for Consultation. Retrieved 12/12/08, from http://www.audit-commission.gov.uk/caa/downloads/CAAConsultation08.pdf Thomas, J. J., & Cook, K. A. (2005). Illuminating the Path: The Research and Development Agenda for Visual Analytics: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Department of Homeland Security. Wood, J., and Dykes, J., 2008, Spatially Ordered Treemaps: IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, v. 14, p. 1348-1355.  Biographies:  Robert Radburn is an ESRC UPTAP research fellow at City University London developing capacity for visual exploratory analysis in local government, and a Senior Research Officer at Leicestershire County Council working to support evidence-based policy. Jason Dykes and Jo Wood are senior lecturers in geographic information at the giCentre, City University London with interests in geovisualization.  

vizLib: Using The Seven Stages of Visualization to Explore Population Trends and Processes in Local Authority Research

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