The Design Workshop

Before the Gordon Research Conference start I'm attending the pre-conference workshop on Design Principles for Creating Effective Visualizations.

It is short lectures and group work. A lot of group work!

Here are some sparse notes:

• Visualization is the use of graphical techniques to convey info and support reasoning
• Representation: The Mike Hann's "Ceci n'est pas une molecule". We are showing something that highlight some aspect of the original data, but it is not the original data. I have to read the handout form a Donald Norman book (Things that make us smart).
• The enormous power of representation that can change significantly the cost of the insight.
• Distributed cognition: it is the internal representation plus the external cognition artifacts that play together
• Visualization challenge: Design a representation that uses graphical techniques effectively. Design needs three interlocked disciplines: psychology, domain knowledge and art&design. The last is always forgotten.
• Then divided in 4 groups we selected good/bad visualizations. I presented the Ute Roehrig Alzhaimer proteins aggregation and the Davide Branduardi energy landscape (see my workshop materials page)
• Constructive criticisms: Do the audience knows what they are going to see? Challenge of conventions. The landscape is good because matches everyday experience (valleys, things going down).
• From another work (movement of lipids in a cellular membrane): use of highlight to direct attention. Animation of H atoms confusing, need same form of traces to be understandable. Good idea the use of zoom to attract attention.
• Unfortunately not open, but on flashchem.nelson.com there are nice examples of interactive Flash usage for concept explanation.
• Barbara presented idea on cognitive design principles. The viz designer must uncover the mental model of the viz user. Use the context to disambiguate the message.
  
• Color usage ideas: known guidelines. But a new ideas: hue for periodic data. Hue is circular, so can convey ideas on things like phase (that it is circular). It also show very clearly discontinuities.
• Space usage: look at cartography. To show one thing better, the cartographer must absolutely distort something else.
• The viz scientists learn by observing. Learn by examples.
• Design a visualization. Do not lock into a solution too early!

Today we must present a design to make more effective one presented visualization. More on this later. But seems we are not able to select one visualization...