649week07 → Organizing Representation Characteristics
You may be internalizing some of the readings on representation last week. As you develop your own framework for thinking about information representations, it may be helpful to think of these examples of developing frameworks to organize representation characteristics. You have to develop your own, and I am not recommending these, just using them as discussion aids.
The above example, found here, starts with four objectives, comparisons, relationships, distributions, and composition. From there, the chartmaker divides data, then settles on formalisms. Note that a given formalism may show up in more than one destination: the scatterplot shows up under relationships and distribution. Note also that the data here is always presumed to be what Agresti (2002) would call interval variables. Finally, only a few formalisms are shown. For instance, relationship could be extended with scatterplot matrices to show relationships between more than three variables.
A more elaborate framework is shown above. The Periodic Table of Visualization shows about a hundred methods on a display that borrows its style from the Periodic Table of Elements. When your mouse hovers over any given square of the table, an example pops up. The above snapshot was taken while my mouse hovered over the semantic networks square. As your thinking about information representation crystallizes, I expect you to value a framework like this more and more. It probably took a lot more effort and study to create than the previous example, and uses definitions and examples from literature. It includes interface features allowing a more compact overview (context) with a dynamic focus. What else can you say about this framework?
Let me just briefly comment on the inspiration that people took from Eytan’s cellular automaton. Here’s a DNA microarray, a relatively new tool for visualizing gene expression under different conditions. This tool was developed for a very particular kind of scientific visualization, but can easily be repurposed. The original use is to observe the degree of gene expression under different conditions. In this example, there are four possible effects, one each shown by red, green, yellow, and black. In addition, each of these four effects can be weak or strong. As with Eytan’s cellular automaton, it’s easy to imagine repurposing this in any system that records a large number of measurements when you know that each measurement can take on only a few values in a few categories.
Finally, here’s an example of a hierarchical menu from a recent a recent trade show. It should be clear that this is the same formalism for tree display as used in the Apple Finder Column View. It should be clear that this is a formalism that solves the problem of trying to depict a large tree in a (potentially small) resizable rectangle. Some elements in this picture are not essential to that mission, such as the curves at each level. There are also some possible additions you could consider. For example, if you have many entries at one level, you could add a way to represent how much of that level is hidden. With the Apple Finder Column View, that is accomplished by making the length of the scroll bar proportional to the hidden portion. What other ways can you think of to accomplish this?
One of the great things about the Periodic Table of Visualization Methods is that it invokes a really elegant metaphor, i.e. the Periodic Table of Elements. We all remember, fondly or less fondly, spending many hours interacting with the Periodic Table and should know that it is a tool dense with information. Thus, the metaphor works well for embedding new complex information with relationships. The visualization table invites exploration where the metaphor breaks down (the nominal categories, represented by the elements).
Personally, I found the Periodic Table of Visualization methods slightly confusing. Although it brings back sweet memories of the Periodic Table of elements (in which elements are organized by atomic number), I could not see how the methods are organized in the Periodic Table of Visualization other than the general classification into Information, Data, Strategy etc. I also thought the “Divergent” thinking and “Convergent” thinking added to the confusion. The examples on hovering are great though. But now I am wondering how useful the table would it be if I had a printed copy (which I do and it looks pretty on my wall but I’ve never got a chance to use it). I may not be able to fully appreciate the table because I haven’t really explored / used it enough.
I think I may have finally realized some of the utility of the treemap, by playing with the mouse-over in the periodic table of visualization. It is fairly clear, even without seeing the periodic table, that there is a very high density of information to space that is possible with treemaps, but I just could not SEE how that utility equates to the dynamic potentials of the visualization field until the mouse-over. I’m sure the treemap has more dynamic power to it than that of the periodic table + mouse-over function, but that was my necessary moment to stack the information density with dynamically focused layering of information. The periodic table of visualizations shares some visual metaphor with the structure of the treemaps in such a way that, coupled with the mouse-over function I started to see how the information density can have a value in and of itself that can be intensified further by introducing user-controlled focusing on specificities within the information density.
I’m not about to give up on the notion that there is still something very… static… about imprisoning information in a little prison block of rectangles, even rectangles of varying colors and sizes, but I also finally, reluctantly, bow my head to the comprehensibility and density it achieves.
The fact that I spent an afternoon and an evening drawing stacks of rectangles and filling them with Sonic and Mario characters, and then adding yet more little rectangles may have something to do with it, as well.
In reaction to Anna’s comment, I also think there was something of memories of a favorite, old Jr. high school biology teacher in my willingness to accept that particular visual metaphor. The fact that my genuine, chemistry-literate comprehension of the periodic table is VERY limited might well, however, also play a part in my finding the visual metaphor useful, rather than confusing.