The Value of Visualization

CSE 512 - Data Visualization

Jeffrey Heer University of Washington

About Jeffrey Heer

• Jeffrey Heer is the Professor of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington,
• He co-directs the Interactive Data Lab and conducts research on data visualization, data science, and human-computer interaction.
• The visualization tools developed by Jeff and his collaborators – including Vega(-Lite), D3.js, and Mosaic – are used by researchers, companies, and data enthusiasts around the world.
• Jeff's research papers have received awards at the premier venues in Human-Computer Interaction and Visualization (ACM CHI, UIST, CSCW, IUI, IEEE Vis, VAST, EuroVis).
• Honors include MIT Technology Review's TR35 (2009), a Sloan Fellowship (2012), the ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award (2016), the IEEE Visualization Technical Achievement Award (2017), and induction into the IEEE Visualization (2019) and ACM CHI (2021) academies.

How much data (bytes) did we produce in 2023?

2023: 118 zetabytes

https://financesonline.com/how-much-data-is-created-every-day/

10x increase over 5 years

Cabspotting data

• Cabspotting is an online system that anonymously tracks and records the movements of Yellow Cab vehicles throughout the greater San Francisco Bay Area. It uses real-time GPS data to visualize the journeys of these cabs, providing frame-by-frame maps of their locations
• The project was initiated by Stamen Design and has been used in various interactive art installations and data visualization projects
• The original dataset, which includes position, timestamp, and whether there was a paying customer at the time, can be obtained from the CrawDad project or Accio's Mobility datasets

Physical Sensors

Image courtesy cabspotting.org

Health & Medicine

Records of Human Activity

IBM History flow tool

• IBM's History Flow tool is a visualization tool for a time-sequence of snapshots of a document in various stages of its creation.
• The tool supports tracking contributions to the article by different users, and can identify which parts of a document have remained unchanged over the course of many full-document revisions.
• The tool was developed by Fernanda Viégas, Martin Wattenberg, Jonathan Feinberg, and Kushal Dave of IBM's Collaborative User Experience research group.

Wikipedia History Flow (IBM)

Wikipedia History Flow (IBM)

The ability to take data—to be able to understand it, to process it, to extract value from it, to visualize it, to communicate it—that’s going to be a hugely important skill in the next decades, … because now we really do have essentially free and ubiquitous data. So the complimentary scarce factor is the ability to understand that data and extract value from it.

Hal Varian, Google’s Chief Economist

The McKinsey Quarterly, Jan 2009

What is Visualization?

“Transformation of the symbolic into the geometric” [McCormick et al. 1987]

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“... finding the artificial memory that best supports our natural means of perception.” [Bertin 1967]

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“The use of computer-generated, interactive, visual representations of data to amplify cognition.” [Card, Mackinlay, & Shneiderman 1999]

[Anscombe 1973]

Summary Statistics

u_X = 9.0 σ_X = 3.317

u_Y = 7.5 σ_Y = 2.03

Linear Regression

Y² = 3 + 0.5 X

R² = 0.67

Set B

Set A

Set C

Set D

X

X

Y

Y

Why Create Visualizations?

Why Create Visualizations?

Answer questions (or discover them) Make decisions

See data in context Expand memory

Support graphical calculation Find patterns

Present argument or tell a story Inspire

Record Information

Gallop; Bay Horse Daisy

• The artwork "Gallop; Bay Horse Daisy" by Eadweard Muybridge is part of the RA Collection and the National Museum of American History.
• It is a collotype on white wove paper depicting a bay horse named Daisy in motion.
• The piece is from Muybridge's series "Animal Locomotion: An Electro-Photographic Investigation of Consecutive Phases of Animal Movement" created between 1872-1885.
• The artwork showcases the scientific and artistic exploration of capturing sequential phases of animal movement through photography

Answer question

Gallop, Bay Horse “Daisy” [Muybridge 1884-86]

This device, which records the pulse by placing it on the wrist and transmitting the pulse movement through a rubber diaphragm, was significant in advancing clinical medicine.  [from Braun 83]

Support Reasoning

Fax to NASA

• Material faxed to NASA by Morton Thiokol were crucial in the events leading up to the Challenger disaster.
• Allan J. McDonald, a key figure in this incident, refused to sign the official authorization form for the launch due to concerns about the O-rings in the Solid Rocket Boosters.
• Despite McDonald's objections, Thiokol personnel overruled their engineers and approved the launch in a fax to NASA.
• This decision ultimately led to the tragic disintegration of the Challenger shuttle during launch, resulting in the loss of all seven astronauts on board

• The teleconference before the Challenger disaster highlighted a significant shift in conversation and decision-making.
• Initially, Thiokol's engineers were against the launch due to concerns about low temperatures affecting the O-rings.
• However, during a caucus session, senior managers at Thiokol, including Robert Lund, shifted their stance from "no launch" to supporting the launch after being instructed to switch from an engineering perspective to a management perspective.
• This change in decision-making ultimately led to Thiokol's approval for the launch despite earlier objections from engineers like Roger Boisjoly

2 of 13 pages of material faxed to NASA by Morton Thiokol [from Tufte 1997]

Make a Decision: Challenger

Make a Decision: Challenger

Visualizations drawn by Tufte show how low temperatures damage O-rings [Tufte 97]

Data in Context: Cholera Outbreak

In 1854 John Snow plotted the position of each cholera case on a map. [from Tufte 83]

Data in Context: Cholera Outbreak

Used map to hypothesize that pump on Broad St. was the cause. [from Tufte 83]

Expand Memory: Multiplication

Class Exercise

Expand Memory: Multiplication

34

x 72

Expand Memory: Multiplication

34

x 72

68

2380

2448

Time (Sec.)

110

83

55

28

0

Mental Paper & Pencil

Find Patterns: NYC Weather

[New York Times 1981]

The Dragons of Eden [Carl Sagan]

The Dragons of Eden [Carl Sagan]

The Elements of Graphing Data [Cleveland]

Convey Information to Others

Inspire

Bones in hand [from 1918 edition]

Double helix model [Watson and Crick 53]

1856 “Coxcomb” of Crimean War Deaths, Florence Nightingale

1856 “Coxcomb” of Crimean War Deaths, Florence Nightingale

“to affect thro’ the Eyes what we fail to convey to the public through their word-proof ears”

The Value of Visualization

Record information

Blueprints, photographs, seismographs, …

Analyze data to support reasoning Develop and assess hypotheses

Find patterns / Discover errors in data Expand memory

Communicate information to others Share and persuade

Collaborate and revise

Visualization Research

More and more unseen data Faster creation and collection

Challenge

Challenge

More and more unseen data Faster creation and collection

Urban development planning

www.urbansim.org

Fluid flow

ctr.stanford.edu

Simulation

Challenge

More and more unseen data Faster creation and collection

Sloan digital sky survey

www.sdss.org

Sensor networks [Hill 02] www.xbow.com

Sensing

Digital photography

Challenge

More and more unseen data

Faster creation and collection; Faster dissemination

Photo sharing/annotation

flickr.com

Map of the Internet [Cheswick 99] research.lumeta.com

Group Authoring

wikipedia.org

Internet

Challenge

More and more unseen data

Faster creation and collection; Faster dissemination

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5 exabytes of new information in 2002 [Lyman 03]

161 exabytes in 2006 [Gantz 07]

1,200 exabytes in 2010 [Gantz 10]

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Necessitates better tools and algorithms for

visually conveying information

Attention

“What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.”

Herb Simon as quoted by Hal Varian Scientific American September 1995

Goals of Visualization Research

1. Understand how visualizations convey information What do people perceive/comprehend?

How do visualizations inform mental models?

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2. Develop principles and techniques for creating effective visualizations and supporting analysis

Amplify perception and cognition

Improve ties between visualization & mental model

Course Topics

Data and Image Models

Sémiologie Graphique [Bertin 67]

Visualization (Re-)Design

Problematic design

Redesign

Visualization Software

D3: Data-Driven Documents

Graphical Perception

The psychophysics of sensory function [Stevens 61]

Color

Color Brewer

Interaction

Crimespotting.org

Animation

Animated transitions in statistical data graphics [Heer & Robertson 07]

Mapping & Cartography

Dymaxion Maps [Fuller 46]

Graphs and Trees

Degree-Of-Interest Trees [Heer & Card 04]

Graphs and Trees

Text Visualization

Alberto Gonzales

Collaboration and History

Collaboration and History

Where have all the dentists gone?

Collaboration and History

Course Mechanics

You should expect to:

1. Evaluate and critique visualization designs
2. Implement interactive data visualizations
3. Gain an overview of research & techniques
4. Develop a substantial visualization project

Textbooks

See also: www.edwardtufte.com

Readings

Some from textbooks, also many papers Material in class will loosely follow readings Readings should be read by start of class

Post discussion comments on class Canvas forum

Comments must be posted within 1 day of lecture You have 2 “passes” for the quarter