Visualization

Ben Schneidermann

Designing the user interface -- strategies for effective human-computer interaction
3rd edn. Addison-Wesley, July 1997

visualization

Grasping the whole is a gigantic theme, intellectual history's most important.

Ant vision is humanity's usual fate; but seeing the whole is every thinking person's aspiration.

David Gelernter, Mirror Worlds 1992

...

• Overview first, zoom and filter, then details on demand.
• Storytelling, as a paradigm for information presentation.

data types

• 1-D linear data -- text, source code, word index
• 2-D map data -- floor plan, office layout
• 3-D world -- molecules, schematics, ...
• temporal data -- 1 D (start, finish)
• multi-dimensional data -- n-dimensional (information) space
• tree data -- hierarchical
• network data -- graph structure

tasks

• overview -- ...
• zoom -- ...
• filter -- ...
• details on demand -- ...
• relate -- ...
• history -- ...
• extract -- ...