Olga Kulyk

Human-Centered Aspects

Humans have remarkable perceptual capabilities. These capabilities are heavily underestimated in current visualizations. Often, this is due to the lack of an in-depth user study to set the requirements for optimal visualizations. The designer does not understand what kind of information should be visualized, how it should be presented or what kind of interactions should be supported. The key elements of successful information visualization are the correct data using the best visualization technique and the best interaction techniques with respect to users. If one of these elements is ignored, people might interpret the data in the wrong way and thus might not understand the underlying information or a pattern. In order to design effective interactive visualizations, it is important to take into account the limitations of human perception, context of use, and the goals and activities that are to be performed to reach these goals. In order to obtain a usable application, developers have to pay attention to the user’s working environment and tasks; this focus-on-user idea is comprised in the human-centered concept. The next section discusses usability (the property of being usable) from the human-centered point of view. Usability has application in many areas, but our focus is on the human-centered approach to design of interactive systems, also called user-centered, in order to inform the reader on how to design visualizations according to human cognitive and perceptual abilities, specific to the context of use and goals of potential users. Then, the usability concept is explained in the “Usability in Human-Centered Design” section. The next Section “User Aims and Requirements” discusses how to define a user group, establish user goals and requirements. Finally, an overview of the different evaluation methods and current evaluation practices, including the practical issues of experiment design that can help to improve the effectiveness of visualizations is presented in the “Evaluation of Visualizations Environments” and “User Studies and a Science of Visualization” sections.

Applying a User-centred Approach to Interactive Visualization Design

Analysing users in their context of work and finding out how and why they use different information resources is essential to provide interactive visualisation systems that match their goals and needs. Designers should actively involve the intended users throughout the whole process. This chapter presents a user-centered approach for the design of interactive visualisation systems. We describe three phases of the iterative visualisation design process: the early envisioning phase, the global specification hase, and the detailed specification phase. The whole design cycle is repeated until some criterion of success is reached. We discuss different techniques for the analysis of users, their tasks and domain. Subsequently, the design of prototypes and evaluation methods in visualisation practice are presented. Finally, we discuss the practical challenges in design and evaluation of collaborative visualisation environments. Our own case studies and those of others are used throughout the whole chapter to illustrate various approaches.

Task modeling for collaborative authoring

Motivation -- Task analysis for designing modern collaborative work needs a more fine grained approach. Especially in a complex task domain, like collaborative scientific authoring, when there is a single overall goal that can only be accomplished only by collaboration between multiple roles, each requiring its own expertise. We analyzed and re-considered roles, activities, and objects for design for complex collaboration contexts. Our main focus is on a generic approach to design for multiple roles and subtasks in a domain with a shared overall goal, which requires a detailed approach. Collaborative authoring is our current example. This research is incremental: an existing task analysis approach (GTA) is reconsidered by applying it to a case of complex collaboration. Our analysis shows that designing for collaboration indeed requires a refined approach to task modeling: GTA, in future, will need to consider tasks at the lowest level that can be delegated or mandates. These tasks need to be analyzed and redesigned in more in detail, along with the relevant task object.

Tackling wicked problems in infection prevention and control: a guideline for co-creation with stakeholders

BackgroundInfection prevention and control can be seen as a wicked public health problem as there is no consensus regarding problem definition and solution, multiple stakeholders with different needs and values are involved, and there is no clear end-point of the problem-solving process. Co-creation with stakeholders has been proposed as a suitable strategy to tackle wicked problems, yet little information and no clear step-by-step guide exist on how to do this. The objectives of this study were to develop a guideline to assist developers in tackling wicked problems using co-creation with stakeholders, and to apply this guideline to practice with an example case in the field of infection prevention and control.MethodsA mixed-method approach consisting of the integration of both quantitative and qualitative research was used. Relevant stakeholders from the veterinary, human health, and public health sectors were identified using a literature scan, expert recommendations, and snowball sampling. The stakeholder salience approach was used to select key stakeholders based on 3 attributes: power, legitimacy, and urgency. Key values of stakeholders (N = 20) were derived by qualitative semi-structured interviews and quantitatively weighted and prioritized using an online survey.ResultsOur method showed that stakeholder identification and analysis are prerequisites for understanding the complex stakeholder network that characterizes wicked problems. A total of 73 stakeholders were identified of which 36 were selected as potential key stakeholders, and only one was seen as a definite stakeholder. In addition, deriving key stakeholder values is a necessity to gain insights into different problem definitions, solutions and needs stakeholders have regarding the wicked problem. Based on the methods used, we developed a step-by-step guideline for co-creation with stakeholders when tackling wicked problems.ConclusionsThe mixed-methods guideline presented here provides a systematic, transparent method to identify, analyze, and co-create with stakeholders, and to recognize and prioritize their values, problem definitions, and solutions in the context of wicked problems. This guideline consists of a general framework and although it was applied in an eHealth context, may be relevant outside of eHealth as well.

Conveying directional gaze cues to support remote participation in hybrid meetings

We study videoconferencing for meetings with some co-located participants and one remote participant. A standard Skype-like interface for the remote participant is compared to a more immersive 3D interface that conveys gaze directions in a natural way. Experimental results show the 3D interface is promising: all significant differences are in favor of 3D and according to the participants the 3D interface clearly supports selective gaze and selective listening. We found some significant differences in perceived quality of cooperation and organization, and on the opinions about other group members. No significant differences were found for perceived social presence of the remote participants, but we did measure differences in social presence for co-located participants. Measured gaze frequency and duration nor perceived turn-taking behavior did differ significantly.

Staying focused: highlighting-on-demand as situational awareness support for groups in multidisplay environments

User interfaces and visualisations are part of group problem solving. Technology is already a part of daily decision-making in multidisplay environments, both as communication tools and information devices. As these devices, such as large displays and visualisation tools become more accessible, there is an increasing opportunity to develop applications that enhance group decision-making abilities, rather than restrict them. This chapter presents the results of the empirical user study on the effect of the Highlighting-on-Demand concept on situational awareness and satisfaction with the group decision-making process in a real multidisplay environment. Highlighting-on-Demand interface enables a team member who is currently controlling the shared large display to draw attention of the other team members by highlighting certain visualisation. Displaying all alternatives on a shared large display fosters information sharing and the Highlighting-on-Demand interface enables group members to draw attention to certain visualisation, while keeping the other alternatives still in view. The results suggest that when group members use the Highlightingon-Demand interface during the discussion, the satisfaction with the final group decision increases. Participants expressed willingness to use the Highlighting awareness support for visualising real data (e.g., biomedical, omics experiments) and manipulating how the data is visualised to discuss the experiment results with other team members in real project discussions.