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Blocked: When the information is hidden by the visualization
Author(s) -
Oh Kyong Eun,
Halpern Daniel,
Tremaine Marilyn,
Chiang James,
Silver Deborah,
Bemis Karen
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
journal of the association for information science and technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.903
H-Index - 145
eISSN - 2330-1643
pISSN - 2330-1635
DOI - 10.1002/asi.23479
Subject(s) - visualization , comprehension , computer science , contrast (vision) , human–computer interaction , relation (database) , information visualization , homogeneous , information retrieval , artificial intelligence , mathematics , data mining , programming language , combinatorics
This study investigated how people comprehend three‐dimensional (3 D ) visualizations and what properties of such visualizations affect comprehension. Participants were asked to draw the face of a 3 D visualization after it was cut in half. We videotaped the participants as they drew, erased, verbalized their thoughts, gestured, and moved about a two‐dimensional paper presentation of the 3 D visualization. The videorecords were analyzed using a grounded theory approach to generate hypotheses related to comprehension difficulties and visualization properties. Our analysis of the results uncovered three properties that made problem solving more difficult for participants. These were: (a) cuts that were at an angle in relation to at least one plane of reference, (b) nonplanar properties of the features contained in the 3D visualizations including curved layers and v‐shaped layers, and (c) mixed combinations of layers. In contrast, (a) cutting planes that were perpendicular or parallel to the 3 D visualization diagram's planes of reference, (b) internal features that were flat/planar, and (c) homogeneous layers were easier to comprehend. This research has direct implications for the generation and use of 3 D information visualizations in that it suggests design features to include and avoid.