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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Gill Sans MT"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:"Gill Sans MT"'>I think that Ben Fry’s thesis
(Masters, I didn’t read his dissertation) proposes some interesting ideas
about the use of organic metaphors for information visualization. It
seems that the biological metaphor is a very popular one in all areas of
research these days, from infovis to engineering to geography. I hesitate
to jump on the bandwagon wholeheartedly, however, since I think this kind of
metaphor can be useful in selected cases but I wonder if it is useful to try to
apply very generally. I do think that Fry’s valence and anemone
visualizations are aesthetically pleasing and fascinating to watch, but I
don’t feel like they offer enough concrete specific information to be
very useful in the area of information communication that I’m interested
in. I must admit (I suppose) that the Tuftian way of thinking is appealing
to me, and from that perspective, I feel that the data-ink ratio in the valence
design is not very high. I also wonder how different the valence
visualization for different texts would appear (aside from the words that
appear to give some sense of content). Since I feel that this display
appeals to the viewer mostly on an aesthetic/emotional level, I would hope that
the form of the figure would be able to convey differences in the emotional
tone of the text represented. I’m not saying that valence can’t
do this, but the examples provided don’t seem to illustrate that it does.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Gill Sans MT"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:"Gill Sans MT"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Gill Sans MT"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:"Gill Sans MT"'>As for anemone, this one can be mesmerizing
to watch, but I’m not sure how much I get out of it in terms of knowledge
about traffic on the webpages represented. I think there are important
outstanding questions on the value of animation for information communication
at the cognitive level. Again, I think anemone has an aesthetic appeal
(although it’s ‘jitteryness’ makes it hard to watch for too
long), but is it easy to extract information from it beyond a vague
‘general sense’ of what’s happening? It is possible
that adding more information could increase its value: for example, a
more obvious graphic representation of time scale could help the viewer get a
better idea of how much time is being represented. Interactivity could
also provide significant improvements (and may be available in the
non-“toy” version?) – for example, the ability to change the
speed of the animation could possibly allow for a lot more information
extraction. Patterns of interest may not be visible at the current speed,
and I think it’s very difficult to determine in advance which speed would
be appropriate for any given task.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Gill Sans MT"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:"Gill Sans MT"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Gill Sans MT"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:"Gill Sans MT"'>Overall, I think Fry’s work is a good
source of inspiration for information visualization, and it will be interesting
to see how far the biological metaphor can be taken in the realm of
infovis. On the other hand, I feel that visualizations like Fry’s
are inadequate for communication of scientific information in my area of
interest (science for the public) since I feel that it is important to
communicate a specific set of ideas, in addition to a “feeling”.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Gill Sans MT"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:"Gill Sans MT"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Gill Sans MT"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:"Gill Sans MT"'>------------------------------------------------<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Gill Sans MT"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:"Gill Sans MT"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Gill Sans MT"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:"Gill Sans MT"'>I enjoyed reading the Baker and Bushell
article for several reasons. First, the information content of this
visualization is very similar to the type of thing I’m interested in
visualizing. Furthermore, I like the narrative approach taken and the
authors’ willingness to reexamine a successful visualization
they’ve created and detail their thought processes while doing so…I
find this kind of example very useful when trying to improve my own
designs. One can definitely see the Tuftian influence in the revisions
they discuss here.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Gill Sans MT"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:"Gill Sans MT"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Gill Sans MT"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:"Gill Sans MT"'>Some of the additional information elements
that they talk about in section 2 (such as inclusion of geographic features to
give a sense of size or grad marks to illustrate computational resolution) are
great candidates for interactivity. Giving the viewer the chance to
‘turn on’ or ‘turn off’ these graphic elements can
allow for information communication that doesn’t clutter the display and
obscure other elements of interest.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Gill Sans MT"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:"Gill Sans MT"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Gill Sans MT"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:"Gill Sans MT"'>The discussion of color was interesting, and
it illustrates all of the competing factors that must be weighed when choosing
colors: the nature of the phenomena, how it appears to the naked eye, the
conventions that the audience is familiar with, etc. I’m also
interested in a couple of factors that weren’t given too much attention
here: the properties of the human perceptual and cognitive systems, and the
means by which the data were collected/generated. I feel that either of
these, as well, can and should have an influence on choice of color
schemes. To illustrate what I mean by the way in which data are
collected/generated, I’ll use a controversy that continues in the field
of remote sensing. Traditionally, vegetation is shaded red in color
images based on satellite imagery. This is partly for historic reasons,
since although these images were initially generated by scaling the sensitivity
of regular photographic film to pick up infrared radiation, which would then
show up as red in the image. Now that satellite images are computer
generated, the choice of red for vegetation seems arbitrary (and
counterintuitive for the general audience), but the tradition persists.
Some have insisted on starting to color vegetation green, and do so against the
general trend in the community. There are many good arguments for
switching to green, but I’d like to suggest one reason for keeping the
red color in some cases (depending on the nature of the desired
communication). The red color is indicative of the process by which this
information was generated, and I feel that in some respects this could be
important for an eventual audience to be aware of. If vegetation is
colored green as it would be in a photograph, this may keep the audience
ignorant of ways in which the image they’re looking at is different from
a photograph. Anyway, I think that serious considerations of all of the
factors that could influence appropriate color choice are important, and often
overlooked by scientists visualizing geo-phenomena. For this reason, I’m
happy that these authors are bringing the importance of these decisions to
light in a context that may reach some members of their own community.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Gill Sans MT"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:"Gill Sans MT"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Gill Sans MT"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:"Gill Sans MT"'>There are many other things that I could
discuss about this article (especially about the use of animation and an
implicit assumption that it will facilitate understanding), but I’ll
finish with one final observation that was briefly mentioned in section
4. The two versions have very different emotional impacts – the original
being dark and sinister, while the other is calm and beautiful, not jarring the
senses at all. The question remains, for the general audience, which do
we prefer? Should we be communicating that storms are scary, or that they
are a beautiful part of the natural world? I’m not sure there’s
one right way to look at them, but it seems that choices between visualizations
(let’s say those shown on the weather channel) will be based on the emotional
reaction that the presenter trying to provoke. It is an interesting
question to consider: how should the scientific community make use of
emotional reactions generated by visualizations? Should this be a major
design factor, or should we try to rely on dispassionate presentation of ‘facts’
and data?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Gill Sans MT"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:"Gill Sans MT"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Gill Sans MT"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:"Gill Sans MT"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 face="Gill Sans MT"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:"Gill Sans MT"'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoAutoSig><font size=2 face="Book Antiqua"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:"Book Antiqua"'>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoAutoSig><font size=2 face="Book Antiqua"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:"Book Antiqua"'>Stacy Rebich<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoAutoSig><font size=2 face="Book Antiqua"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:"Book Antiqua"'>Graduate Student<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoAutoSig><font size=2 face="Book Antiqua"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:"Book Antiqua"'>Department of Geography<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoAutoSig><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceType w:st="on"><font size=2
face="Book Antiqua"><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Book Antiqua"'>University</span></font></st1:PlaceType><font
size=2 face="Book Antiqua"><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Book Antiqua"'>
of <st1:PlaceName w:st="on">California</st1:PlaceName></span></font></st1:place><font
size=2 face="Book Antiqua"><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Book Antiqua"'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoAutoSig><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on"><font size=2
face="Book Antiqua"><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Book Antiqua"'>Santa
Barbara</span></font></st1:City><font size=2 face="Book Antiqua"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Book Antiqua"'>, <st1:State w:st="on">CA</st1:State>
<st1:PostalCode w:st="on">93106</st1:PostalCode></span></font></st1:place><font
size=2 face="Book Antiqua"><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Book Antiqua"'><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoAutoSig><font size=2 face="Book Antiqua"><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:"Book Antiqua"'>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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