Constructing Visual Representations: Investigating the Use of Tangible Tokens

Area of Science:

• Human-Computer Interaction
• Information Visualization

Background:

• Accessibility of information visualization (infovis) authoring tools is a significant research challenge.
• Developing effective visual mappings is a crucial but understudied aspect of infovis authoring.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how individuals construct visual representations from data.
• To understand the process of creating, updating, and explaining visualizations.

Main Methods:

• A study was conducted where participants used tangible building blocks to create, modify, and explain their own information visualizations.
• Observations focused on participants' actions during visualization development and analytical tasks.

Main Results:

• Participants, including those with minimal prior experience, successfully created and articulated their visualizations.
• The study observed participants' processes in transforming data into visual forms and their analytical engagement with these representations.

Conclusions:

• Individuals can effectively engage in visualization authoring using intuitive, tangible methods.
• Findings offer insights for designing infovis authoring tools that support a wider user base and enhance the visualization creation process.