1 Casual InfoVis CS 7450 - Information Visualization October 9, 2013 John Stasko Topic Notes Casual InfoVis • Let’s start off with ideas and concepts from… Fall 2013 CS 7450 2 TVCG (InfoVis) ‘072 Casual InfoVis • Let’s start off with ideas and concepts from the paper… • A complement to the majority of ‘central’ infovis; which is a focus on analytic tasks and analysts as the idealized user. •Infovis for the everyday person • Spend some time looking at the ‘edges’ of the infovis domain Fall 2013 CS 7450 3 Definition •Casual Infovis is the use of computer mediated tools to depict personally meaningful information in visual ways that support everyday users in both everyday work and non-work situations. Fall 2013 CS 7450 43 Good Examples Fall 2013 CS 7450 5 Changes to traditional notions • The user population  Expand to include many more kinds of people and many more situations and scenarios.  People who are not explicit or implicit analysts  Non-professionals in general  Low(er) motivation Fall 2013 CS 7450 64 Changes to traditional notions • Usage pattern  New patterns of use that depart from the more traditional deep-dive explorations and sensemaking  In a word, more casual  Fleeting awareness and monitoring tasks  Could also include more substantial reflections  Mobile and ubiquitous, not just desktop Fall 2013 CS 7450 7 Changes to traditional notions • Data types also change  Often personally relevant (about ‘me’)  Tight coupling between user and the data  Tight coupling gets at what is meaningful about the data stream… not always what is important. Sometimes the most minute and boring detail is still very meaningful. Fall 2013 CS 7450 85 Changes to traditional notions • Insight  Gets a one of the fundamental questions of infovis. We all agree that the purpose of infovis is insight… Do you agree?  But the examples on the edges show different kinds of insights.  Maybe insights are not perfectly quantifiable in a way that’s rigorous (for an attempt see Saraiya & North 2005) Fall 2013 CS 7450 9 Areas to explore for today • Artistic InfoVis • Ambient InfoVis • Social InfoVis (an appetizer) Fall 2013 CS 7450 106 A quick word… Fall 2013 CS 7450 11 A quick word… on birds Fall 2013 CS 7450 127 A quick word… on birds Fall 2013 CS 7450 13 A quick word… on birds Fall 2013 CS 7450 148 Areas to explore for today • Artistic InfoVis • Ambient InfoVis • Social InfoVis Fall 2013 CS 7450 15 Artistic InfoVis Fall 2013 CS 7450 169 Artistic InfoVis • Artistic expression using visualizations of data • They are not just generative art – they still read data, represent it, and some are interactive • Systems often depart from the central notion of infovis that first and foremost, a visualization should be easy to read. • Also can ‘problemitize’ the data… Fall 2013 CS 7450 17 Many examples Fall 2013 CS 7450 1810 Jason Salavon Fall 2013 CS 7450 19 Jason Salavon Fall 2013 CS 7450 2011 Jason Salavon Fall 2013 CS 7450 21 The Top Grossing Film of All Time, 1 x 1 2000 The worldwide top grossing film of all time (until 2010), Titanic, was digitized from video in its entirety and broken up into its constituent frames. Each of these was then averaged to a single color best representative of that frame and reformatted as a photograph mirroring the narrative sequence of the film. Reading from left-to-right and top-to-bottom, the narrative's visual rhythm is laid out in pure color. http://salavon.com/work/TopGrossingFilmAllTime/ Wignell Fall 2013 CS 7450 22 Sorting (real time)12 Arthur Buxton Fall 2013 CS 7450 23 http://www.arthurbuxton.com/2010/11/van-gogh-visualisation.html Viegas, et al. Fall 2013 CS 7450 24 Artifacts of the Presence Era13 Feltron Fall 2013 CS 7450 25 Annual Report (2008) Flags as infographics • Foote Cone & Belding Fall 2013 CS 7450 26 Foote, Cone & Belding14 Flags as infographics • Foote Cone & Belding Fall 2013 CS 7450 27 Foote, Cone & Belding Flags as infographics • Foote Cone & Belding Fall 2013 CS 7450 28 Foote, Cone & Belding15 New Communities Fall 2013 CS 7450 29 New Communities Fall 2013 CS 7450 3016 Ambient InfoVis Fall 2013 CS 7450 31 Fall 2013 CS 7450 32 Objectives • Systems so far  What is their purpose or objective? High-level purpose or task  Analysis, Exploration, Learning • Are there other high-level tasks that infovis can assist with?  Awareness, monitoring17 Fall 2013 CS 7450 33 Central idea • People interpret images well • As they say, a picture’s worth thousand words … so use visualization for information awareness Fall 2013 CS 7450 34 Calm Technology • Mark Weiser  “A calm technology will move easily from the periphery of our attention, to the center, and back.”18 Fall 2013 CS 7450 35 Ambient Displays • Conveys low- to medium-priority information to people, while residing in the periphery of their attention • Other terms sometimes used  Peripheral display, notification system Fall 2013 CS 7450 36 Ambient Displays • Purpose:  Information awareness, perhaps monitoring • Focus:  Aesthetics Visually pleasing enhancement to surroundings19 Other dimensions in the space Fall 2013 CS 7450 37 Information capacity How much info can they transmit? Notification level Are they subtle or more attention-grabbing? Representational Fidelity Flexibility with regard to data mappings Aesthetics Visually pleasing enhancement to surroundings Pousman & Stasko AVI ‘06 Other dimensions in the space Fall 2013 CS 7450 3820 Fall 2013 CS 7450 39 Ambient InfoVis • InfoVis off the desktop • Still visually encoding information, but not for analytic purposes  Presenting the information in places where you’re not doing “desktop computing” Fall 2013 CS 7450 40 Examples • Let’s look at some examples of ambient displays or ambient information visualizations21 Fall 2013 CS 7450 41 Dangling String • Plastic spaghetti wire hanging from ceiling • Hangs from motor in ceiling • Electrically connected to ethernet cable so bits going by cause it to jiggle • Created by artist Natalie Jeremijenko Fall 2013 CS 7450 42 Ambient Room • Use variety of physical objects in office to communicate the state of relevant information • Hiroshi Ishii’s group at MIT Video Wisneski et al CoBuild ‘9822 Fall 2013 CS