Supporting Sensemaking of Complex Objects with Visualizations: Visibility and Complementarity of Interactions

Abstract

Making sense of complex objects is difficult, and typically requires the use of external representations to support cognitive demands while reasoning about the objects. Visualizations are one type of external representation that can be used to support sensemaking activities. In this paper, we investigate the role of two design strategies in making the interactive features of visualizations more supportive of users' exploratory needs when trying to make sense of complex objects. These two strategies are visibility and complementarity of interactions. We employ a theoretical framework concerned with human-information interaction and complex cognitive activities to inform, contextualize, and interpret the effects of the design strategies. The two strategies are incorporated in the design of Polyvise, a visualization tool that supports making sense of complex four-dimensional geometric objects. A mixed-methods study was conducted to evaluate the design strategies and the overall usability of Polyvise. We report the findings of the study, discuss some implications for the design of visualization tools that support sensemaking of complex objects, and propose five design guidelines. We anticipate that our results are transferrable to other contexts, and that these two design strategies can be used broadly in visualization tools intended to support activities with complex objects and information spaces.

Discourse with Visual Health Data: Design of Human-Data Interaction

“…The manner in which interaction is operationalized contributes to the quality of users' discourse with data and thus is an important consideration for designers [53,64]. For instance, one visualization might allow users to change the subset of data being visualized, while another may only allow users to change aesthetic qualities of the visualization such as size and color.…”

“…It is important to provide users with actions that, when performed in conjunction, lead to the emergence of a task. Studies suggest that complementary actions can contribute towards the completion of sensemaking tasks [64][65][66][67]. For example, in a study on making sense of 4D mathematical structures, the authors note that providing complementary actions can enhance the user's discourse with the data [64].…”

“…Studies suggest that complementary actions can contribute towards the completion of sensemaking tasks [64][65][66][67]. For example, in a study on making sense of 4D mathematical structures, the authors note that providing complementary actions can enhance the user's discourse with the data [64]. Furthermore, complementary actions support flexibility by increasing the ways in which users can complete a specific task [21].…”

Sense-making strategies in explorative intelligence analysis of network evolutions

“…The latter point out that the emphasis so far has been on the analysis of outcomes rather than on the sense-making process itself. Sedig et al (2016) studied complementary interactionsthat is, interactions that occur in conjunction with each other to improve the users' performance. Doppler Haider et al (2017) used the Data/Frame model to analyse users' interaction log data.…”

Sense-making Strategies for the Interpretation of Visualizations—Bridging the Gap between Theory and Empirical Research

“…It could be argued, however, that if these sequences are supposed to assist the users to get results they should somehow complement each other. Sedig et al [37] also developed a model for the analysis of complex cognitive activities. This is based on their work in Parsons and Sedig [36].…”