”Confusion and clutter are failures

of design, not attributes of information.”

- Edward R. Tufte

On Informatio

n

Guru:Edward R.

Tufte

”Confusion and clutter are failures

of design, not attributes of information”

Edward R. Tufte

Visualizing the editing history of Wikipedia pages - Viégas, Wattenberg & Dave

http://www.research.ibm.com/visual/projects/history_flow/or google “history flow” IBM

Graphic Tools

Choosing data...

• Show only relevant data– Otherwise: clutter

• Show only reliable data– Otherwise: distrust

• Most important data comes first / is more colorful / is larger / etc!

• Provide several views– Layering data vs not layering it

Information

Visualization

”The use of computer-supported,

interactive, visual representations of abstract data to

amplify cognition”

- Card, Mackinlay & Shneiderman

Zooming and

lenses

Semantic ZoomWhen information changes (and typically gets richer) when zooming in.

Magic Lenses: Transparent - Different properties - Change view

Toolglass and Magic Lenses. Bier, E., et al., 1993

The Document Lens G.G.Robertson and J.D.Mackinlay

Focus + Context

Focus + Context:

To display the most important data at the focal point at full size and detail, and display the area

around the focal point (the context) to help make sense of how the important information

relates to the entire data structure. Regions far from the focal point may be displayed

smaller (as in fisheye views) or selectively omitted.

Fisheye Views

Main issue:Distortion

"Well....thanks to the lame ass security, I’m

going home!"

Axl W Rose, July 2 1991Riverport Amphitheatre, St.

Louis, Missouri,

HyperbolicGeometry

Typically laid out in circles, or onto globes or hemispheres

Focal point in the centerThe further from the

center the smaller the items

Allows angles or positions to stay constant when changing focus but not both...

Hyperbolic geometry

Trees

Hierarchical tree v. 1

Hierarchical tree v.2

Disk tree

Cone tree...

Tree Map – node within node

Tree Map – node within node