Radial visualization, or the practice of displaying data in a circular or elliptical pattern, is an increasingly common technique in information visualization research. In spite of its prevalence, little work has been done to study this visualization paradigm as a methodology in its own right. We provide a historical review of radial visualization, tracing it to its roots in centuries-old statistical graphics. We then identify the types of problem domains to which modern radial visualization techniques have been applied. A taxonomy for radial visualization is proposed in the form of seven design patterns encompassing nearly all recent works in this area. From an analysis of these patterns, we distill a series of design considerations that system builders can use to create new visualizations that address aspects of the design space that have not yet been explored. It is hoped that our taxonomy will provide a framework for facilitating discourse among researchers and stimulate the development of additional theories and systems involving radial visualization as a distinct design metaphor.

Surveys and opinion polls are extremely popular in the media, especially in the months preceding a general election. However, the available tools for analyzing poll results often require specialized training. Hence, data analysis remains out of reach for many casual computer users. Moreover, the visualizations used to communicate the results of surveys are typically limited to traditional statistical graphics like bar graphs and pie charts, both of which are fundamentally noninteractive. We present a simple interactive visualization that allows users to construct queries on large tabular data sets, and view the results in real time. The results of two separate user studies suggest that our interface lowers the learning curve for naive users, while still providing enough analytical power to discover interesting correlations in the data.

Many courses on the history of computing are designed for a general student audience, and as such, include fewer technical details than one might find in a typical CS course. While this approach is appropriate in some contexts, it risks losing the interest of the students who could perhaps benefit most from the subject -namely, future computer scientists. This paper describes a technically-oriented History of Computing course which we taught at the University of Utah in 2008. Like other History of Computing courses, ours included a significant amount of writing and discussion. However, inasmuch as our course was created specifically for CS students, we also incorporated several "hands-on" programming exercises and demonstrations, giving students actual experience with the computing environments of the past. Students and faculty alike have responded enthusiastically to this dualfaceted approach.

Electronic literature has seen an explosion in popularity in recent years, due largely to the wide availability of smartphones, tablets, and dedicated e-reader devices. Somewhat surprisingly, mobile computing has been slow to embrace hypertext fiction. Yet the same qualities that make handheld devices popular for traditional linear narratives -small size, ease of use, and near ubiquity -also make them ideally suited for the distribution and consumption of hypertext narratives. In this paper, we review some existing systems for reading hypertext literature on mobile devices, and introduce Jarnaby Reader, a prototype e-reader for hypertext narratives that supports automatically generated overhead maps.

SQiRL is a novel visualization system for querying and visualizing large multivariate data sets. Although initially designed for novice users, recent extensions to SQiRL facilitate more advanced analysis without sacrificing the simplicity that makes this visualization appealing to beginners. The default view provides a simple-to-learn interface for query evaluation. Intermediate users are provided a straightforward method for comparing the results of two queries. More advanced users can make use of a "radial crosstab," a new interactive visualization technique that melds the expressive power of traditional crosstabulation with a drag-and-drop canvas.