Browsing by Author "Knudsen, Søren"
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- ItemOpen AccessBelief at first sight: Data visualization and the rationalization of seeing(John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2019-12) Kosminsky, Doris; Walny, Jagoda; Vermeulen, Jo; Knudsen, Søren; Willett, Wesley J.; Carpendale, SheelaghData visualizations are often represented in public discourse as objective proof of facts. However, a visualization is only a single translation of reality, just like any other media, representation devices, or modes of representation. If we wish to encourage thoughtful, informed, and literate consumption of data visualizations, it is crucial that we consider why they are often presented and interpreted as objective. We reflect theoretically on data visualization as a system of representation historically anchored in science, rationalism, and notions of objectivity. It establishes itself within a lineage of conventions for visual representations which extends from the Renaissance to the present and includes perspective drawing, photography, cinema and television, as well as computer graphics. By examining our tendency to see credibility in data visualizations and grounding that predisposition in a historical context, we hope to encourage more critical and nuanced production and interpretation of data visualizations in the public discourse.
- ItemOpen AccessDeveloping a Data Integrated COVID-19 Tracking System for Decision-Making and Public Use(International Journal of Popular Data Science, 2020-09-28) Krusina, Alexander; Chen, Oscar; Otero Varela, Lucia; Doktorchik, Chelsea; Avati, Vince; Knudsen, Søren; Southern, Danielle; Eastwood, Cathy; Sharma, Nishan; Williamson, TylerIntroduction The unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic unveiled a strong need for advanced and informative surveillance tools. The Centre for Health Informatics (CHI) at the University of Calgary took action to develop a surveillance dashboard, which would facilitate the education of the public, and answer critical questions posed by local and national government. Objectives The objective of this study was to create an interactive method of surveillance, or a “COVID-19 Tracker” for Canadian use. The Tracker offers user-friendly graphics characterizing various aspects of the current pandemic (e.g. case count, testing, hospitalizations, and policy interventions). Methods Six publicly available data sources were used, and were selected based on the frequency of updates, accuracy and types of data, and data presentation. The datasets have different levels of granularity for different provinces, which limits the information that we are able to show. Additionally, some datasets have missing entries, for which the “last observation carried forward” method was used. The website was created and hosted online, with a backend server, which is updated on a daily basis. The Tracker development followed an iterative process, as new figures were added to meet the changing needs of policy-makers. Results The resulting Tracker is a dashboard that visualizes real-time data, along with policy interventions from various countries, via user-friendly graphs with a hover option that reveals detailed information. The interactive features allow the user to customize the figures by jurisdiction, country/region, and the type of data shown. Data is displayed at the national and provincial level, as well as by health regions. Conclusions The COVID-19 Tracker offers real-time, detailed, and interactive visualizations that have the potential to shape crucial decision-making and inform Albertans and Canadians of the current pandemic.
- ItemOpen AccessExploring Design Opportunities for Visually Congruent Proxemics in Information Visualization: A Design Space(Eurographics Association, 2020-05) Chulpongsatorn, Neil; Yu, Jackie; Knudsen, SørenWe explore design opportunities for varying visual complexity of information visualizations based on distance. Through considering visual congruency and proxemics interaction, we describe a design space that considers potential transitions between visualizations in relation to distance. Our design space is based on exploring prototyping and design possibilities. It describes three properties (boundedness, connectedness, and cardinality) and five design patterns (subdivision, particalization, peculiarization, multiplication, and nesting) that might be considered in design. We describe our design ideas and prototypes, as well as reflect on their usefulness. Finally, we discuss limitations and implications of our work.
- ItemOpen AccessPADE: Supporting Collaborative Visual Analysis of Patient Administrative Systems Data with a Large Touch Display System(IEEE, 2019-10) Knudsen, Søren; Hornbæk, KasperWe present PADE, a visual analytics tool for collaboratively exploring data from patient administrative systems on large touch displays in meeting contexts. Large touch displays are becoming commercially available, but we have limited knowledge about how they might be used in such a context. We designed PADE based on inquiries with healthcare data analysts tasked with understanding expenses in a healthcare system that serve about six million residents. Our goals in designing the system were to enable the analysts to collaboratively construct hypotheses, quickly generate and execute strategies, and support ad hoc discussions and Q&A sessions during meetings. We created a set of interaction techniques that let users create new visualizations and combine parts of existing ones. We illustrate these possibilities through a collaborative analysis scenario. Finally, we discuss the possibilities and limitations of PADE, its interaction techniques, and future work in this direction.
- ItemOpen AccessPixelClipper: Supporting Public Engagement and Conversation About Visualizations(IEEE, 2020-03) Walny, Jagoda; Storteboom, Sarah; Pusch, Richard; Hwang, Steven Munsu; Knudsen, Søren; Carpendale, Sheelagh; Willett, Wesley J.In this article, we present PixelClipper, a tool built for facilitating data engagement events. PixelClipper supports conversations around visualizations in public settings through annotation and commenting capabilities. It is recognized that understanding data is important for an informed society. However, even when visualizations are available on the web, open data is not yet reaching all audiences. Public facilitated events centered around data visualizations may help bridge this gap. PixelClipper is designed to promote discussion and engagement with visualizations in public settings. It allows viewers to quickly and expressively extract visual clippings from visualizations and add comments to them. Ambient and facilitator displays attract attention by showing clippings. They function as entry points to the full visualizations while supporting deeper conversations about the visualizations and data. We describe the design goals of PixelClipper, share our experiences from deploying it, and discuss its future potential in supporting data visualization engagement events.
- ItemOpen AccessSimultaneous Worlds: Supporting Fluid Exploration of Multiple Data Sets via Physical Models(Graphics Interface 2022, ACM, 2022-05) Hull, Carmen; Knudsen, Søren; Carpendale, Sheelagh; Willett, WesleyWe take the well-established use of physical scale models in architecture and identify new opportunities for using them to interactively visualize and examine multiple streams of geospatial data. Overlaying, comparing, or integrating visualizations of complementary data sets in the same physical space is often challenging given the constraints of various data types and the limited design space of possible visual encodings. Our vision of “simultaneous worlds” uses physical models as a substrate upon which visualizations of multiple data streams can be dynamically and concurrently integrated. To explore the potential of this concept, we created three design explorations that use an illuminated campus model to integrate visualizations about building energy use, climate, and movement paths on a university campus. We use a research through design approach, documenting how our interdisciplinary collaborations with domain experts, students, and architects informed our designs. Based on our observations, we characterize the benefits of models for 1) situating visualizations, 2) composing visualizations, and 3) manipulating and authoring visualizations. Our work highlights the potential of physical models to support embodied exploration of spatial and non-spatial visualizations through fluid interactions.
- ItemOpen AccessVisualizing the 11th Classification of Diseases(2019-10-05) Aseniero, Bon Adriel; Knudsen, Søren; Ghali, William A.; Carpendale, SheelaghWe designed and implemented an interactive artistic data visualization of the 11th International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11). Our visualization primarily showcases the structure of the ICD-11, showing how the different codes fall into the main disease categories (chapters) and subcategories. This is our preliminary approach in the design and study of artistic visualizations for exploring the ICD-11, as well as aid in its awareness campaign.