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Beyond Bertin: Seeing the Forest despite the Trees
September/October 2010 (vol. 30 no. 5)
pp. 7-11
ASCII Text
x 
 
Caroline Ziemkiewicz, Robert Kosara, "Beyond Bertin: Seeing the Forest despite the Trees," IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, vol. 30, no. 5, pp. 7-11, September/October, 2010.
 
 
BibTex
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@article{ 10.1109/MCG.2010.83,
author = {Caroline Ziemkiewicz and Robert Kosara},
title = {Beyond Bertin: Seeing the Forest despite the Trees},
journal ={IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications},
volume = {30},
number = {5},
issn = {0272-1716},
year = {2010},
pages = {7-11},
doi = {http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/MCG.2010.83},
publisher = {IEEE Computer Society},
address = {Los Alamitos, CA, USA},
}
 
 
RefWorks Procite/RefMan/Endnote
x 
 
TY - MGZN
JO - IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications
TI - Beyond Bertin: Seeing the Forest despite the Trees
IS - 5
SN - 0272-1716
SP7
EP11
EPD - 7-11
A1 - Caroline Ziemkiewicz,
A1 - Robert Kosara,
PY - 2010
KW - information visualization
KW - visual design
KW - visualization theory
KW - visual structure
KW - computer graphics
KW - graphics and multimedia
VL - 30
JA - IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications
ER -
 
Caroline Ziemkiewicz, Brown University
Robert Kosara, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Visualization is at a point in its development where its practitioners frequently find themselves grappling with big questions about its nature and purpose. These include fundamental questions about how visualization works—that is, how do people interpret visual forms as information? Classical visualization theory sees this as a process of encoding data variables as visual variables, which the viewer then decodes. Although this body of theory is useful, it doesn't account for visual structure's role in shaping information. Experiments on how design affects users' interpretations of simple visualizations suggest that structural elements such as borders, fills, and arrangement (in addition to the traditional marks) carry significant, predictable semantic information. Drawing on these findings as well as design traditions, the authors argue that visual structure's apparent dynamics play a major role in a user's understanding of data and must be considered in the design and evaluation of visualizations.

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Index Terms:
information visualization, visual design, visualization theory, visual structure, computer graphics, graphics and multimedia
Citation:
Caroline Ziemkiewicz, Robert Kosara, "Beyond Bertin: Seeing the Forest despite the Trees," IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, vol. 30, no. 5, pp. 7-11, Sept.-Oct. 2010, doi:10.1109/MCG.2010.83
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