LECTURE 3 - TASK ABSTRACTION
2025-01-28
LAST LECTURE
Computer-based visualization systems provide visual representations of datasets designed to help people carry out tasks more effectively.
TASK ABSTRACTION
Computer-based visualization systems provide visual representations of datasets designed to help people carry out tasks more effectively.
FROM DOMAIN TO ABSTRACTION
ACTIONS AND TARGETS
ACTIONS - Analyze
Consume: Information has already been generated and stored as data.
- Discover: new knowledge, test hypothesis, generate new hypothesis, verify
- Present: communicate something specific and already understood
- Enjoy: casual encounters with visualization
Produce: generate new material or information
- Annotate: addition of graphical or text to existing visualization elements
- Record: saves or captures visualization elements as persistent artifacts (screenshots, lists, parameter sets, annotations)
- Derive: produce new data based on existing data (aka transform)
ACTIONS - Search
Lookup: Location and target both known
- Example: Look up humans in the Tree of Life, knowing they are mammals.
Locate: Location unknown and target known
- Example: Look up rabbits in the Tree of Life, not knowing they are lagomorphs.
Browse: Location known and target unknown
- Example: Find any clades within Mammalia that have only one species.
Explore: Location unknown and target unknown
- Example: Searching for anomalies in time series data.
ACTIONS - Query
Query: How much of the data matters to the task?
- Identify: One (specific Item, individual, cell, etc)
- Compare: Some (multiple targets)
- Summarize: All (very common, aka Overview)
TARGETS - All Data
TARGETS - Attributes
TARGETS - Other Data
SUMMARY
Computer-based visualization systems provide visual representations of datasets designed to help people carry out tasks more effectively.