1. Comp 15 - Usability & Human Factors
Unit 12a - Information Visualization
This material was developed by Columbia University, funded by the Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology under Award Number 1U24OC

2. Overview Main concepts Information Visualization in Medicine
Field of Information Visualization
Main concepts
Presentation
Interaction and dynamic queries
Hierarchies and trees
Time-series data
Information Visualization in Medicine
Component 15/Unit 12a
Health IT Workforce Curriculum Version 2.0/Spring 2011

3. Field of Information Visualization
Data explosion
bytes of unique info per year
250 Meg for every man, woman and child
Printed documents – 0.003% of total
Peter Lyman and Hal Varian, 2000 Cal-Berkeley, Info Mgmt& Systems
Knowledge workers
Reliance on information
Ability to process information to make correct decision or select appropriate action
Medical applications
Access to large volumes of various patient-related information
Assess the case, select appropriate action
Component 15/Unit 12a
Health IT Workforce Curriculum Version 2.0/Spring 2011

4. Field of Information Visualization
Human Vision
Highest bandwidth (100 MB/sec)
Fast, parallel
Pattern recognition
Pre-attentive
Extends memory and cognitive capacity
People think visually
Great resource to use in application design
Component 15/Unit 12a
Health IT Workforce Curriculum Version 2.0/Spring 2011

5. Field of Information Visualization
Which state has the highest income? Is there any relationship between income and education? (tables and graph – lectures in InfoVis Chris North, UV)
Field of Information Visualization
Component 15/Unit 12a
Health IT Workforce Curriculum Version 2.0/Spring 2011

6. Field of Information Visualization
Which state has the highest income? Is there any relationship between income and education? (tables and graph – lectures in InfoVis Chris North, UV)
Field of Information Visualization
Component 15/Unit 12a
Health IT Workforce Curriculum Version 2.0/Spring 2011

7. Field of Information Visualization
Information Visualization IS
Cognitive process
Understand decision making practices in a particular domain
Understand data used in decision making
Provide tools that present data in a way that helps people understand it and gain insight from it (data  information  knowledge)
Information Visualization IS NOT
Visual design
UI design or Information Architecture (although can be related)
Scientific visualization (visual representation of physical objects – medical imaging)
Component 15/Unit 12a
Health IT Workforce Curriculum Version 2.0/Spring 2011

8. Field of Information Visualization
Mapping items with no direct physical correspondence to 1, 2 or 3-D physical space
Highlighting important aspects of data that support its comprehension
Components:
Identify, Locate, Distinguish, Categorize, Cluster, Distribution, Rank, Compare (within relations), Compare (between relations), Associate, Correlate
Overview, Zoom, Filter, Details on demand, Relate, History, Extract
Analysis tasks:
Component 15/Unit 12a
Health IT Workforce Curriculum Version 2.0/Spring 2011

9. Health IT Workforce Curriculum Version 2.0/Spring 2011
Examples
Smart Money (
Transparent New York (
Component 15/Unit 12a
Health IT Workforce Curriculum Version 2.0/Spring 2011

10. Multivariate data sets
Data tables
Most popular way of presenting information in information-rich interfaces (tabular)
Disadvantage – provide access to data, but minimal decision support
Data types:
Nominal (qualitative)
Ordinal
Numeric (quantitative)
Meta-data (data about data, i.e. type)
Data sets – number of variables per class
1 – Univariable sets
2 – Bivariate sets
3 – Trivariate sets
>3 – Hypervariate sets
Component 15/Unit 12a
Health IT Workforce Curriculum Version 2.0/Spring 2011

11. Multivariate data sets
Representation
Graphs
Charts (structure and relationships between entities are important)
Maps (spatial organization)
Diagrams (schematic picture of object or entity)
Glyphs (metaphors – mapping variables to particular visual properties)
Component 15/Unit 12a
Health IT Workforce Curriculum Version 2.0/Spring 2011

12. Representations of data sets: Simple data sets
1. Univariate sets 8 6 3 1
Component 15/Unit 12a
Health IT Workforce Curriculum Version 2.0/Spring 2011

13. Representations of data sets: Simple data sets (con’t)
2. Bivariate sets (scatter plot is common)
price
mileage
Component 15/Unit 12a
Health IT Workforce Curriculum Version 2.0/Spring 2011

14. Representations of data sets: Simple data sets (con’t)
3. Trivariate sets (3D scatter plot – quickly becomes messy)
horsepower
price
mileage
Component 15/Unit 12a
Health IT Workforce Curriculum Version 2.0/Spring 2011

15. Representations of data sets: Simple data sets (con’t)
3. Trivariate sets (3D scatter plot – quickly becomes messy)
horsepower
price
mileage
Component 15/Unit 12a
Health IT Workforce Curriculum Version 2.0/Spring 2011

16. Multivariate data sets
1. Each variable in its own display
Component 15/Unit 12a
Health IT Workforce Curriculum Version 2.0/Spring 2011

17. Hypervariate data sets
2. Scatterplot matrix
Image source:
Component 15/Unit 12a
Health IT Workforce Curriculum Version 2.0/Spring 2011

18. Hypervariate data sets (con’t)
3. Star Plot
Component 15/Unit 12a
Health IT Workforce Curriculum Version 2.0/Spring 2011

19. Hypervariate data sets (con’t)
4. Parallel coordinates
Component 15/Unit 12a
Health IT Workforce Curriculum Version 2.0/Spring 2011

20. Hypervariate data sets (con’t)
5. Metaphor-based
Component 15/Unit 12a
Health IT Workforce Curriculum Version 2.0/Spring 2011