BETWEEN AESTHETICS AND UTILITY: DESIGNING AMBIENT INFORMATION VISUALIZATIONS

Tobias Skog Sara Ljungblad Lars Erik Holmquist

GOAL

Get information visualization out of the desktop and into the real world

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AMBIENT INFORMATION VISUALIZATION

Ambient Media Informative Art

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DESIGNING FOR BUS DEPARTURE TIMES

Sizetime remaining until departure

Colortime it takes to catch the bus from infovis display

Positioninbound vs. outbound

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REDESIGNING THE VISUALIZATION

River [blue rectangle]

connection to the physical world

Central Station [white sq.]

handle rush hour extra buses

Too-late-to-catch busesrepresented as white squares

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6 in situ on-site interviews(instead of heuristic evaluation and lab studies)

EVALUATION

Participant

That something is visualized

What is visualized

How the data is visualized

1 ✓ ✓ ✓

2 ✓ ✓ ✓

3 ✓ ✓ ✓

4 ✓ ✓

5 ✓ ✓

6

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THE 4 LESSONS

By finding information that is relevant to the place where the ambient display is located, every person spending time at that place becomes a potential user.

The rate of change in the information should be frequent enough to promote relevance, but the developer can affect the visual appearance by slowing down the changes or adding a small amount of animation.

1. Use localized context 2. Find the right rate of change

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THE 4 LESSONS

Basing a visualization on an artistic style need not hinder – and might even support – the readability and comprehension of an ambient infovis installation.

Letting features of the information source affect the visual encoding, thus providing a mnemonic to remember the mapping, is a good way to support the comprehension of the display.

3. Consider an artistic style 4. Let the source guide you

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AESTHETICS AS A PRIMARY PROPERTYboth in the design and during use

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DISCUSSION

1. What’s your opinion on the bus departure times infovis? Did you like it? What did you like/dislike about it?

2. There’s an obvious tension between art and utility. The authors suggest that an artistic style need not hinder – and might even support – the readability and comprehension of an ambient infovis installation. What is your view on how art contributes/hinders infovis design?

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