The Unmet Data Visualization Needs of Decision Makers Within Organizations

Area of Science:

• Information Visualization
• Decision Science
• Management Science

Background:

• Past visual analytics research primarily addresses data analysts' needs.
• Organizational decision makers face unique challenges integrating data with expertise.
• Limited understanding exists on how visualization tools can support organizational decision-making.

Purpose of the Study:

• To characterize the role and challenges of organizational decision makers.
• To explore how visualization tools can better support these decision makers.
• To identify opportunities for novel visualization tools in organizational contexts.

Main Methods:

• Literature review of management theories.
• Empirical survey with organizational decision makers.
• Qualitative interviews with organizational decision makers.

Main Results:

• Decision makers integrate uncertain data with non-formalized knowledge in multi-objective problems.
• Identified needs include trade-off overviews and scenario-based analysis.
• Opportunities exist for visualization tools supporting information management and collaboration.

Conclusions:

• Visualization design must extend beyond data analysis to information management for decision makers.
• Novel tools are needed to address the specific challenges of organizational decision-making.
• Future research should focus on developing and evaluating these specialized visualization tools.