Experience Equity and Universal Access: Designing Clinical Studies for Low Vision  

In this paper, I describe web page design for those interested in conducting clinical, low vision studies. Ideally, web pages should be accessible and usable for all readers; however, the web is a highly visual medium for communication and creates serious accessibility issues for specialized (diverse needs) those with vision needs. Therefore, I propose that researchers consider a paramount and concurrent user-centered design approach when creating stimulus materials for these specialized audiences. This paper introduces readers to this design approach for a low vision audience as described in the WebText Study.

Reece, Gloria A. STC Proceedings (2005). Articles>Usability>Testing>Visual

El Movimiento en la Visualización

Desde el principio de la humanidad, la correcta percepción del movimiento ha constituido una rutina importante de la vida cotidiana. También constituye un recurso importante en la visualización.

Dursteler, Juan Carlos. InfoVis (2004). (Spanish) Articles>Usability>Visual Rhetoric>Cognitive Psychology

Testing the Usability of Interactive Visualizations for Complex Problem-Solving: Findings Related to Improving Interfaces and Help    

In visual querying, users analyze data for their decisions and problems by interacting with graphics that are dynamic and linked. This querying paradigm is new, a dramatic break from the more familiar retrieving of data via search statements and displaying of it in static charts and graphs. For this new visual querying paradigm, analysts conceptually and operationally need to master new approaches. To discover salient relationships, they need to manipulate displays. To drill down for detail or causes, they have to select data of interest directly from a graph. And to draw inferences, they have to consider meanings across several dynamically linked graphics. With the aim of studying users success in these new approaches, particularly focusing on the approach of directly selecting data from graphs, I conducted a scenario-based usability test with 10 data analysts. They interacted with visualizations to complete a realistic complex analysis evaluating employee performance. Test findings reveal a range of difficulties in visual selection that, at times, gave rise to inaccurate selections, invalid conclusions, and misguided decisions. To overcome these difficulties, support for visual selection needs to be built into interfaces and help. Results and recommended improvements are presented.

Mirel, Barbara E. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2001). Articles>User Interface>Usability>Visual Rhetoric

Tracing Visual Narratives: User-Testing Methodology for Developing a Multimedia Museum Show    

As a cognitive framework for making meaning of the world, the narrative provides a powerful form for structuring information, and has been adopted as a useful design framework for many communicative forms, including interactive media. This paper reports on the use of visual narrative for user-testing an interactive museum show. The viewers’ perceived narratives of a sequence of graphics from a show on brain science were compared to the designers’ intended narrative. Mapping the audience’s reading of the visual arguments proved a useful testing structure in developing the show, with color and pattern tracking proving especially critical when viewers experienced novel or abstract information.

Kim, Loel. Technical Communication Online (2005). Articles>Usability>Testing>Visual Rhetoric

Using Visual Techniques to Enhance Usability  

Effective visual design enhances the overall success of a manual as much as, if not more than, the other factors that go into its makeup. The presentation shows how we redesigned a 2-volume manual into a 6-volume manual and otherwise maximized the visual impact of the manual. The many examples of improved visual presentations show how important effective visual design is to the overall impact of the manual. While we also changed stylistic and organizational elements of the manual, we found the impact of the changes in the visual elements most powerful.

Evans, Jeanette P. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Usability>Visual Rhetoric

Visualizations for Data Exploration and Analysis: A Critical Review of Usability Research    

Data visualization has the potential to change the questions that people are able to pose to their data and transform their analytical methods and decision-making processes. It may, in fact, be the next generation of data reporting tools. This article argues that the prevailing computer science orientation to data visualizations is severely limited for addressing many of the usability concerns associated with supporting users in three critical problem areas: sophisticated visual literacy, complex data analysis, and new paradigms of visual inquiry. I first describe what visualization technology is and what is uncharted about the three usability areas of perceptually rich, interactive displays; complex problem-solving; and visual querying. Then I explain what it means to take a computing -- specifically an object-oriented -- perspective on the usability of visualizations, emphasizing the limitations of this point of view when it comes to supporting users in complex activities and reasoning.

Mirel, Barbara E. Technical Communication Online (1998). Articles>Usability>Visual>Visual Rhetoric