A Nested Model for Visualization Design and Validation

Abstract

Abstract-We present a nested model for the visualization design and validation with four layers: characterize the task and data in the vocabulary of the problem domain, abstract into operations and data types, design visual encoding and interaction techniques, and create algorithms to execute techniques efficiently. The output from a level above is input to the level below, bringing attention to the design challenge that an upstream error inevitably cascades to all downstream levels. This model provides prescriptive guidance for determining appropriate evaluation approaches by identifying threats to validity unique to each level. We also provide three recommendations motivated by this model: authors should distinguish between these levels when claiming contributions at more than one of them, authors should explicitly state upstream assumptions at levels above the focus of a paper, and visualization venues should accept more papers on domain characterization.

User studies in cartography: opportunities for empirical research on interactive maps and visualizations

“…The latter usability evaluations increasingly are referred to as design studies in which an interactive visualization is created to meet a real-world problem domain, and then evaluated to determine its effectiveness and efficiency in meeting this use and user context (Munzner, 2009;Munzner, 2014). While traditional controlled experiments informed by psychology seek generalizable and reproducible insights serving as overarching guidance, the design studies informed by HCI and UE instead seek transferrable and contextual insights that may be useful in similar use and user scenarios (Sedlmair, Meyer, & Munzner, 2012).…”

Graph Drawing through the Lens of a Framework for Analyzing Visualization Methods

“…Benchmarks and complexity analysis are a different way to compare approaches, as are user studies in the form of controlled experiments or more qualitative investigation of how people use visualization systems [10].…”

“…In recent work, I proposed separating the design concerns of visualization into four levels: domain problem, data and task abstraction, visual encoding and interaction technique, and algorithm, as shown in Figure 1 [10]. In that paper, I also discuss the problem of how to validate designs at each of these levels.…”

“…I also discuss the abstraction level briefly, to provide background context. [10] My characterization here focuses on one major issue: how is space used? This question is an explicit consideration in visualization, but the motivation is not quite so obvious when considered purely from the perspective of problems that arise in graph drawing.…”

Evaluation in the Crowd. Crowdsourcing and Human-Centered Experiments

“…Recently, Mahyar et al [68], Tanahashi et al [94], and Saket et al [86] proposed models of enjoyment in visualization. In particular, Saket et al considered different elements of flow (challenge, focus, clarity, feedback, control, immersion) and argued that these elements correspond to specific levels of Munzner's nested model [76]. Later Saket et al [87] used the flow-based evaluation in a study of the enjoyment of two different visualization methods of the same relational data: node-link and node-link-group visualizations.…”