Towards a Visual Interface for Information Visualization

Information visualization, aided by ever more accessible computational resources, continues to grow in popularity and significance. The capability to generate complex imagery by computer is often necessary but not always sufficient to gain the desired insight. The success of a visual representation in a given context may be affected by many variables, not the least of which is the individual user’s experience. Even if a precise relationship could be found between context and “best” visual representation, the complete articulation of a context is practically impossible. In other fields, this is known as sensitive dependence to initial conditions. A more feasible alternative is to begin with an incomplete articulation of a context and allow the user to interactively develop and refine it. Although most computer interfaces for information visualization tools are predominantly verbal, a predominantly visual interface can have significant advantages. Such an interface allows users to avoid the usual translations between visual and verbal modes and it removes users’ need for a specialized visualization vocabulary. A visual interface can also shift the focus of the visualization process from the data towards the user. These ideas are discussed in the context of a prototype tool, the design of which is illustrated with an example, and the evaluation of which has provided many positive results.