Introduction to Information Visualisation

Prof. Keith Andrews

ISDS, Graz University of Technology, Austria

Web site:
https://isds.tugraz.at/keith/

Slides:
https://keithandrews.com/talks/2022/2022-10-27-ivis-dh/

Course Notes:
https://courses.isds.tugraz.at/ivis/ivis.pdf

27 Oct 2022, Centre for Information Modelling, University of Graz.

Sales Data as a Table

Month	Salesperson A	Salesperson B
2012-01	28,366	23,274
2012-02	27,050	21,732
2012-03	29,463	23,845
2012-04	32,561	28,732
2012-05	28,050	24,023
2012-06	30,100	26,089
2012-07	22,343	19,026
2012-08	21,506	17,903
2012-09	24,664	19,387
2012-10	28,842	23,490
2012-11	30,621	25,873
2012-12	36,254	28,490

Information Visualisation

“Let my dataset change your mindset.”
[Hans Rosling, title of talk at TED@State, 03 Jun 2009]

Information visualisation (InfoVis) is the visual presentation of abstract information spaces and structures, together with accompanying interactions, so as to facilitate their rapid assimilation and understanding.

Hans Rosling; Stats that Reshape Your Worldview;
TED 2006 Talk, 22 Feb 2006.
https://ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen

Visualisation

The broader field of visualisation has three main sub-fields:

InfoVis:

Information Visualisation (InfoVis) deals with abstract information structures, such as hierarchies, networks, or multidimensional spaces.
GeoVis:

Geographic Visualisation (GeoVis) is map-based. The data typically has inherent 2d or 3d spatial coordinates, and is generally shown in relation to a map.
SciVis:

Scientific Visualisation (SciVis) typically involves concrete (3d) objects, for example a medical scan of part of the body, or a simulation of air flow around an aircraft wing. SciVis visualisations often depict flows, volumes, and surfaces in (3d) space.

Data Visualisation (DataVis) = InfoVis + GeoVis.

Visual Analytics = DataVis (frontend) + Analytics (backend).

Multidimensional Data as a Table

City	Net Purchasing Power	Prices (incl. rent)	Net Wages	Working Time [hours per year]	Vacation [paid working days per year]	Time Required for Big Mac [minutes]	Time Required for iPhone 4S 16gb [hours]	City Break	Inflation 2011
Amsterdam	90.1	69.1	69.4	1755	24	15	44	720	2.48
Athens	60.5	58.2	40.0	1822	22	29	86	590	3.10
Auckland	82.9	67.8	63.5	1852	20	15	51	580	4.03
Bangkok	31.4	48.2	17.4	2312	7	36	165	550	3.81
Barcelona	78.6	65.6	58.7	1760	29	18	52	740	3.05
Beijing	29.9	51.8	18.0	1979	9	34	184	730	5.42
Berlin	97.1	64.1	70.1	1742	28	16	56	720	2.48
Bogotá	40.7	47.0	22.0	1981	15	52	142	540	3.42
Bratislava	50.7	47.1	27.3	1884	23	31	126	490	4.08
Brussels	78.5	68.8	59.5	1729	20	19	54	730	3.47
Budapest	32.0	50.4	18.1	1912	22	49	206	740	3.90
Buenos Aires	46.2	47.7	25.4	1830	13	45	187	620	9.78
Bucharest	34.0	34.8	13.5	1836	26	57	230	370	5.81
Caracas	25.7	85.4	23.4	1878	17	80	272	830	26.09
...

UBS Prices and Earnings Survey 2012 [UBS, 2012]
https://www.ubs.com/microsites/prices-earnings/open-data.html

Bloomberg: What's Really Warming the World

Styrian Diversity Visualisation

Responsive Information Visualisation

Scalable Visualisations:
- Scale fluidly (but nothing else).
Responsive Visualisations:
- Responsive Layout: Change layout at breakpoints, scale fluidly between breakpoints.
- Responsive Display Density: Support higher and lower resolutions, data point sampling.
- Responsive Interaction: Provide selective support for touch, keyboard, mouse, motion events, etc. Larger tap areas.

Conferences

EuroVis 2023; 12-16 Jun 2023, Leipzig, Germany.
eurovis.org
IEEE Vis 2022; 16-21 Oct 2022, Oklahoma City, USA (hybrid)
ieeevis.org

Books (HowTo Guides)

Stephen Few; Show Me the Numbers: Designing Tables and Graphs to Enlighten; 2^nd Edition, Analytics Press, Jun 2012. 0963488414
Andy Kirk; Data Visualisation; 2^nd Edition, Sage Publications, 08 Jul 2019. 1526468921
Danyel Fisher and Miriah Meyer; Making Data Visual; O'Reilly, 12 Jan 2018. 1491928468
Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic; Storytelling with Data; Wiley, 02 Nov 2015. 1119002257
Stephen Few; Now You See It: Simple Visualization Techniques for Quantitative Analysis; Analytics Press, 2009. 0970601980
Stephen Few; Information Dashboard Design: Displaying Data for At-A-Glance Monitoring; 2^nd Edition, Analytics Press, Aug 2013. 1938377001

Books (Hardcore InfoVis)

Tamara Munzner; Visualization Analysis and Design: Abstractions, Principles, and Methods; A. K. Peters, 26 Nov 2014. 1466508914
Matthew Ward, Georges Grinstein, and Daniel Keim; Interactive Data Visualization; 2^nd Edition, CRC Press, 29 May 2015. 1482257378
Christian Tominski and Heidrun Schumann; Interactive Visual Data Analysis; A. K. Peters, 30 Apr 2020. 0367898756
Colin Ware; Information Visualization: Perception for Design; 4^th Edition, Morgan Kaufmann, 11 Mar 2020. 0128128755

Videos

Hans Rosling; Stats that Reshape Your Worldview; TED 2006 Talk, 22 Feb 2006.
https://ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen
David McCandless; The Beauty of Data Visualization; TED Global 2010 Talk, 14 Jul 2010.
https://ted.com/talks/david_mccandless_the_beauty_of_data_visualization
Keith Andrews; Illuminating Data Through Visualisation; TEDxGraz Talk, 06 Nov 2015.
https://youtu.be/fnyKj8r0CN4

Thank You!

Prof. Keith Andrews
ISDS, Graz University of Technology, Austria
https://isds.tugraz.at/keith/

These slides:
https://keithandrews.com/talks/2022/2022-10-27-ivis-dh/

Course Notes on Information Visualisation:
https://courses.isds.tugraz.at/ivis/ivis.pdf

Introduction to Information Visualisation

Prof. Keith Andrews

ISDS, Graz University of Technology, Austria

Sales Data as a Table

Sales Data as a Line Chart

Information Visualisation

Visualisation

Interactive Information Visualisation

Visualising Hierarchies

Hyperbolic Browser

Voronoi Treemap

Visualising Multidimensional Metadata

Multidimensional Data as a Table

Parallel Coordinates and Similarity Maps

Visualising Networks

Visualising Object Collections (Feature Spaces)