CAREER: Effective Interaction Design for Data Visualization

这项研究扩展了PI独特的和变革性的Vega-Lite语法和语言，用于指定信息可视化，以专注于交互机制。新工具将与流行的开源/行业研究创作平台集成。先前的研究已经开发出有效视觉编码的理论(即，如何最好地将数据值映射到视觉属性，例如位置、形状或大小)。在软件中实现这些理论推动了社会采用可视化作为记录、分析和交流数据的媒介。然而，很少有类似的互动理论构建，互动是在生成和回答假设之间实现紧密反馈的关键组成部分。例如，不同的交互设计选择如何影响数据集覆盖率、洞察率以及人们对其发现的信心？现有理论的局限性阻碍了对可视化系统中交互设计的支持，并阻碍了为交互设计建立约定。例如，在不同的工具中，拖动可以平移图表、突出显示刷新点或放大到选定的区域。本研究将通过众包、实验室和现场研究评估信息可视化的交互技术来发展理论。将对照可测量的结果，如可用性、完成时间、准确性和更高层次的认知，对设计选择、数据分布和分析任务进行调查。将研究由此产生的新理论对交互可视化技术的影响，解决以下研究问题：(1)如何展示结果，以有效的交互来增强静态可视化？(2)如何促进探索？(3)如何建议未探索的可视化状态？该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This research extends the PI's unique and transformative Vega-Lite grammar and language for specifying information visualizations to focus on mechanisms for interaction. New tools will be integrated with popular open source / industry research authoring platforms. Prior research has developed theories of effective visual encoding (i.e., how best to map data values to visual properties such as position, shape, or size). Implementing these theories in software has advanced society's adoption of visualization as a medium for recording, analyzing, and communicating about data. However, there has been little analogous theory-building for interactivity, a critical component for enabling tight feedback between generating and answering hypotheses. For instance, how do different interaction design choices affect dataset coverage, the rate of insights, and people's confidence in their findings? Limits of prior theory impede support for interaction design in visualization systems, and establishing conventions for interaction design. For example, in different tools, dragging may pan a chart, highlight brushed points, or zoom into a selected region.This research will develop theory by evaluating interaction techniques for information visualization via crowdsourced, laboratory, and field studies. Design choices, data distributions, and analytic tasks will be investigated, vis-à-vis measurable outcomes, such as usability, completion time, accuracy, and higher-level cognition. The impact of resulting new theory on techniques for interactive visualization will be studied, addressing research questions such as: (1) How to present results to augment static visualizations with effective interactivity? (2) How to promote exploration? (3) How to suggest unexplored visualization states?This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.