The effect of aesthetic visual properties on the comprehension of data visualizations

• Main Authors: Chinjen, Katrina K., Estoista, Nicole Anne Therese P., Wu, Judy Ann G.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2018
• Subjects: Information visualization
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/7537
• Institution: De La Salle University

Data visualizations provide a useful way of conveying information to its viewers and communicating data in any discipline. Its literature suggests that the use of aesthetics tend to enhance cognitive aspects involving memorability, recognition and recall, and engagement of viewers. However, previous works have not considered how visual properties-- which represent the aesthetic feature of a data visualization -- affect the comprehension of users in terms of its intrinsic aspect. The study aims to determine the effects of visual properties-- color and distance-- on the intrinsic aspect of comprehension specifically on multiple-time series line charts (or temporal visualizations) with respect to trend-detection tasks. In this study, visual properties of graphs (color and distance) were manipulated in terms of hue, color lightness, and the horizontal distance between points (in cm) to create monochrome and multi-hue palettes and graphs that vary in aspect ratios. These were tested through three within-subjects experiments that were encoded as a questionnaire in a computer program that measured their response times (RT) and accuracy. Eighty-eight participants classified as engineering and non-engineering students performed four trend-detection tasks on these experiments. No significant difference in the comprehension between these two groups were found. Overall, the green monochrome palette, multi-hue palettes having 75% lightness level, and wide level (2.50 cm between data points) were the settings that had the best performance. Insights on these results were attributed to the various physiological and psychological aspects of human vision such as the sensitivity of the rods and cones with respect to color variation and lightness and the gestalt principle of connectedness. The task type also affected the results complex task types such as discrimination yielded lower performance.