DIMS | Communication and Visualisation

150519| GRS60312

Ron van Lammeren

Learning outcomes

Demonstrate the use of proper visualization techniques for effective communication of the information in the monitoring system

Develop and present a demonstrator for the DIMS focussing on communication and visualization

Course guide GRS60312 – 2014/2015

Maps for Monitoring

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Maps for monitoring

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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/business/ibm-takes-smarter-cities-concept-to-rio-de-janeiro.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

What type of design?

Communication

sender

Just bought a dog

A big one ?

No, not so big ...

Long hair?

No, short hair !

What colour?

White black spotted...

What a nice dog !

Isn’t it ?

receiver sender

receiver

Geo-visualisation communication

Sender: geo-referenced message

Receiver:(un) intended interpretation

interface

geo-visualisation

interface

Geo-visualisation 2-way communication

Receiver: (un) intended information (data)

Sender: intended message

interface

geo-visualisation

interface

Interaction Design

Setup

A Previous knowledge

B Usability

C User centered design

D Usability evaluation

E Trends

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?

?

design evaluate

Interaction design: designing interactive products to support the way people

communicate and interact in their everyday and working lives

DIMS: designing interactive products to support the way people communicate

and interact with integrated monitoring procedures

A. Previous visualisation knowledge

KA |Cartography and Visualization

o History and trends

o Data considerations

oPrinciples of Map Design

o Graphic presentation techniques

o Map production

o Map use and Evaluation

BoK, Geo-Information (2006, DiBiase)

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A. Principles of design

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J. Bertin | cartographic theory

E. Tufte | data visualisation concepts

C. Ware | visual interpretation and cognition

C. Blok | cartographic concepts of temporal geodata

(S. Few | simple graphics of quantitative data)

linked to cognitive aspects of map reading skills

What knowledge may help ?

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Landscape visualisation

Scientific visualisation

Cartographic visualisation

Geo data

‘Sensors’

Cognitive Affective Evaluative

Cartographic animation

Landscape animation

Scientific vis animation

Feedback Adjustments

A. Loosely bounded

S

M

L

S

M

L

C

C A

reference

thematic

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A. Interactive visualisations

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What interaction?

B.Usability of Geo-Visualisations

Usability Making products and systems easier to use,

and

matching them more closely to user needs and requirements

International standard, ISO 9241-11:

The extent to which a product can be used by specified users

to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and

satisfaction in a specified context of use.

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www.usabilitynet.org

http://icaci.org/research-agenda/usability-of-maps-and-gi/

B.Usability goals

Effective to use (effectiveness)

Efficient to use (efficiency)

Safe to use (safety, error tolerant)

Have good utility (in line with required tasks)

Easy to learn (learnability)

Easy to remember how to use (memorability)

Rogers, Sharp, Preece 2011

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B.User experience goals

Desirable aspects

● Satisfying, enjoyable, challenging, helpful, provoactive, ..

Undesirable aspects

● Frustrating, Boring, Patronizing, Cutesy, ..

The users - who is using the product?

highly trained and experienced users, or novices?

Their goals - what are the users trying to do with the product

does it support what they want to do with it?

The usage situation (or 'context of use')

where and how is the product being used?

15/45 Rogers, Sharp, Preece 2011

What to support the user’s interest?

C. Process of interaction design

User centered

Personas & requirements

Design principles

Demonstrator / Prototype

Evaluate

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C. User centered approach

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Applying a user-centered development cycle to interactive visualisation design

?

?

Wassink et al 2008

“ the user never makes an error “

C. Engineering/Design stages

1. Early envisioning phase

Analysis of current situation (users, environments, tasks)

- personas and requirements

2. Global specification phase of early prototypes

Design (by use scenarios), Proposal of solutions, present to users and

other stakeholders

3. Detailed specification phase of complete prototypes

Based on evaluation of 2.; visual representation and interaction styles

Rogers, Preece, Sharp, 2011

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http://www.usabilitynet.org/tools/13407stds.htm

C1. Early envisioning : Personas

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personal characteristics, activities, interests thay may lead to use scenarios

Rich descriptions of typical user of the product.

Personas represent a synthesis of a number of real people and

are characterized by a unique set of goals relating to the product intended.

C1.Personas profiles

Psychological characteristics:

cognitive style, motivation

Knowledge and experience:

ranking novices to experts

Physical discomfort:

colour blind, pattern recognition

Task related:

role, frequency of use

C1.Techniques to define Personas

Questionnaires (many users, difficult to design)

Interviews (exploring, time consuming)

Existing documentation (trustworthy?)

Observation (creates understanding, time consuming)

Participation

Focus groups

Develop Use Scenarios

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How to create Personas?

Haklay & Zafiri 2008

C2. Requirements

Statement about an intended product that specifies what it should do or how it should perform (Rogers et al, 2011; p 355)

Requirements describe the formal specifications required to implement the system

Lessons !!!

o produce a stable set of requirements (eg Volere skeleton template chapters 9/17)

o getting requirements right is crucial

o the stage where failure occurs most commonly

o !! mistakes in a final product are expensive !!

o try to understand underlying needs

o do not decide for the user, but check with the users

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http://www.volere.co.uk/template.htm

C2. HTA and Story Board

23/45 Roest, Pieters, Bosch, 2015

C3. Interaction design principles

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• Visibility highly visibly attracts attention

• Feedback important to know how to continue

• Constraints eg deactivating options

• Consistency locations on a screen

• Affordance a mouse button affords to click, a door handle to push

Rogers, Preece, Sharp, 2011

http://asktog.com/atc/principles-of-interaction-design/

How about ArcGIS ?

Verweij et al, 2010 25/45

Main design rule?

Usability evaluation

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Any consistency?

Usability evaluation

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What affordance?

C3. Methods & Tools

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Some of the same methods are used in design and evaluation differently Different methods are often combined in one study

http://www.usabilitynet.org/tools/methods.htm

D.Usability evaluation

?

?

Just bought a dog

A big one ?

No, not so big ...

Long hair?

No, short hair !

What colour?

White black spotted...

What a nice dog !

Isn’t it ?

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D.Usability evaluation – how?

Approaches

Controlled settings involving users like Living labs

Natural settings involving users like Field studies

Controlled settings without users like Expert reviews

Methods and techniques

Quantitative or qualitative

Formative or summative

Users or experts (latter by eg. heuristic evaluation)

http://www.useit.com/jakob/

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D.Evaluation approaches

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Living Labs Field studies Expert reviews

Users do specific tasks do natural tasks not involved

Location controlled daily / natural

environment

laboratory

When prototype early use stage prototype

Data quantitative qualitative “qualitative”

Feed back measures &

errors

descriptions problem finding

Type applied naturalistic expert based

D.Evaluation methods

Method Living labs Field studies Expert reviews

Observing x x

Asking users x x

Asking experts x x

Testing x

Modeling x

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http://www.groenmonitor.nl/groenindex

D. Pros and Cons

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D.Usability evaluation methods in detail

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Usually lab experiments

Performance metrics

Issues based metrics

Self-report measures

Behavioural and physiological metrics

Tullis, Albert 2008

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqD2pXqT0Z0

E. Trends | medium is the message

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http://bit.ly/cSNvc1 / Rogers et al, 2011 (p 482 -487) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQHX-SjgQvQ

What went wrong?

E. Trends

o History and trends

o Data considerations

o Principles of Map Design

o Graphic presentation techniques

o Map production

o Map use and Evaluation

BoK, Geo-Information (2006, DiBiase)

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E. Next visualisation knowledge

KA |Cartography and Visualization

o History and trends

o Data considerations | global coverage (spatio-temporal resolution!),

3D, big data, data ensembles

o Principles of Map Design | seamless map+ lod, temporal, 3D, story

telling / infographics, animation

o Graphic presentation techniques | static to dynamic, web-map and -

scenes, virtual globes, virtual to augmented reality continuum

o Map production | paper to any device (any screen size to oculus rift),

interactive maps

o Map use and Evaluation | role of new technologies

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E. Trendy Topics

Increasing demand for 3D, “realistic” visualizations, and animation

Driven by familiarity with new technology (games)

3D, realistic visualizations are aesthetically pleasing

benefits of realism

● minimize interpretive effort

● feels complete, accurate, easy (available instantly and constantly)

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http://viscog.beckman.illinois.edu/flashmovie/15.php

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjMVsTFVX10

E.3D visualizations

If the data themselves are 3D, the third dimension communicates important information

3D useful for:

visualizing volumes, and sightlines (instead of making mental models by combining 2D visualizations)

communicating the concept place

navigating through areas

Realistic texturing, illumination:

may facilitate feeling of ‘presence’ in a location

may introduce affective appraisal of an area

http://assassinscreed.ubi.com/revelations/en-GB/home/

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E.Preference for realism

• extraneous realism slowed response time and lead to more eye fixations on both task-relevant and task-irrelevant regions of the displays • some participants persisted in favoring these realistic displays over non-realistic maps.

Hegarty et al, 2011

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E.Preference for 3D visualizations:

Naïve Realism and Naïve Cartography!

Users prefer realistic, complex and high-fidelity displays, even when their performance is lower (extra information is not task relevant, and distracting)

Users have more confidence in data presented in realistic displays

Appreciation of the 3D visualization may transfer to the content of the data

User preferences, even those of domain experts, are not a good indication of effectiveness; testing required.

Smallman, St John 2005

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Risks of 3D preference?

E. Attractive things work better

when we feel attracted, we overlook design faults

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E. Attractive things work better

when we feel attracted, we overlook design faults

Donald Norman (2002)

“.. any pleasure, derivable from the appearance or functioning of the tool increases positive affect, broadening the creativity and increasing the tolerance for minor difficulties and blockages.

The changes in processing style released by positive affect aid in creative problem solving that is apt to overcome both difficulties encountered in the activity and those created by the interface design.

“Tools that are meant to support serious, concentrated effort (…), are best served by designs that emphasize function and minimize irrelevancies. “

Here the normal tensions of the situation are beneficial. The design should not get in the way; it must be carefully tailored for the task.

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Some conclusions……

Communication by geo-visualisation is powerful

and common, but:

Use cartographic / geo-visualisation principles

Develop with users (User centered design)

By Defining Personas and Requirements

To develop demonstrators / prototypes

Include interaction design rules

Review demonstrators via usability evaluation

Check if “Affect” be an unwanted side-effect

However: cartography & visualisation trends lead

to options that have not fully dis- and uncovered

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?

?

150519| rvl | www.geo-informatie.nl

Based and inspired by Joske Houtkamp lectures, Rogers et al, projects of Peter Verweij; MGI/GIMA thesis studies (2000 – 2015) of

Bos, Hoogerwerf, Ottens, Davelaar, de Roo, Momot, Velema, Witte, Gaertner, Zhou, Luisman, Milosz, Getachew, Valster, van Rooij,

Gold, Link, Petrenko, van der Mijden, Smit

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Text and pictures from DiWi, Foulkes, GESO, PSPE, QUICKS, VOLANTE projects

DIMS |

Communication

and

Visualisation

http://www.tableau.com/about/blog/2012/11/top-5-visualizations-all-time-19810

References Rogers, Sharp & Preece 2011 Interaction design Wiley

Wassink et al 2008 Applying a user-centered approach to interactive visualisation design in Trends in Interactive Visualization Advanced Information and

Knowledge Processing, 2009, 3, 175-199

Verweij et al 2010 An IT perspective on integrated environmental modelling: The SIAT case ; Ecological modeling 221: 2167-2176

Haklay, Zafiri 2008 Usability Engineering for GIS: Learning from a Screenshot; The Cartographic Journal Vol. 45 No. 2 pp. 87–97

Tullis, Albert 2008 Measuring the User Experience: Collecting, Analyzing, and Presenting Usability Metrics. Burlington, MA: Morgan Kaufmann.

Senaratne et al 2012 Usability of Spatio-Temporal Uncertainty Visualisation Methods in Gensel et al. (eds.), Bridging the Geographic

Information Sciences, Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography

Hegarty et al 2012 Choosing and Using Geospatial Displays: Effects of Design on Performance and Metacognition; Journal of Experimental Psychology:

Applied vol 18, 1: 1-17

Lammeren et al 2010 Affective appraisal of 3D land use visualization; Computers, Environment and Urban Systems 34 (2010) 465–475

Smallman, St. John 2005 Naive Realism: Misplaced Faith in Realistic Displays; Ergonomics in Design: The Quarterly of Human Factors Applications 2005

13: 6

Norman, 2002. The Design of Everyday Things. Basic Books, New York, NY.

Tractinsky et al 2000 What is beautiful is usable; Interacting with Computers 13 (2000) 127-145

Lee, Koubekl 2010 Understanding user preferences based on usability and aesthetics before and after actual use Interacting with Computers 22 (2010)

530–543

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Full screen image with title