Information visualization research scope and case

Recently, "information visualization" is being studied, so first of all, it is necessary to define the research category.

Before the definition of information visualization has been studied by colleagues, this article simply extracts the definition of the wiki:
Information visualization is an interdisciplinary field that aims to study the visual presentation of large-scale non-numerical information resources such as numerous files in a software system or one-line program code, as well as techniques that exploit graphical images And methods to help people understand and analyze data. In contrast to scientific visualization, information visualization focuses on abstract data sets such as unstructured text or points in high-dimensional space (these points do not have an inherent two-dimensional or three-dimensional geometry).

Special distinction between the "information visualization" and "scientific visualization" concept. In some books, both types of visual design are undifferentiated.
The data processed by "scientific visualization" has a natural geometry as follows:

There is a "scientific visualization" I believe readers have "designed" over, high school when painted "magnetic line" "electric field line." These "lines" are invisible to the naked eye (in fact they do not exist), but for theoretical research we visualize them.
The flow of air, the human eye is not visible. In scientific research, invisible gas flows are visualized by some means to aid in simulation experiments or theoretical studies.
This type of visualization, collectively referred to as "scientific visualization," is a specialized area of ​​research and does not fall into the category of "information visualization."
Data visualized is more abstract, such as:

Bar charts, trend charts, flow charts, UML diagrams, and dendrites generated by mindmanager all belong to the visualization of information. The design of these figures all transform the concept of "abstract" into visual information.

To clarify the "scientific visualization", this article will study the category of information visualization from the perspective of functionalism, as well as the case and design features of different types of information visualization. The benefit of doing so is to be able to quickly identify which part of "information visualization" is most valuable to the current job.

Danyel Fisher in an article on visual animation ("Danyel Fisher, http://www.aliyun.com/zixun/aggregation/10820.html"> Steven Drucker, Roland Fernandez, and Xiaoji Chen, Vis-à-vis : A Visual Language for Spreadsheet Visualizations, no. MSR-TR-2011-142, June 2011 ") mentions one dimension of data visualization:" Presentation - Explorer " Better interpretation of the scope of information visualization.

The following is a chart to express the meaning of the "show-explore" dimension.

If you simply look at the chart does not feel, this article to find a few representative cases, you can combine the charts and cases to self-summary.

Show:
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMzI2NTk1NTA4.html
http://xinxisheji.tuyansuo.com/info/1254.html

explore:
http://index.baidu.com/
http://www.google.com/trends/

-------- What is the use of such a dimension? --------

The following discussion of animation and interaction in the design of these two types of information visualization, both pragmatic, but also can help understand the difference between these two types of design.

Start with animations, for example, in the following video:
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMzI2NTk1NTA4.html

Designers take full advantage of the animation, reached the static map can not achieve the effect:

1, excluding the topic has nothing to do with the data, a strong guide to the topic.
2, the animation more clearly expressed the meaning of the data, in particular, the meaning of the designer to express.
3, more dazzling than the static picture more interesting, more eye-catching.
These three points are in line with the "bias to show" the information visualization requirements.

To talk about interaction again, take Baidu index as an example:
http://index.baidu.com

Designers take full advantage of the interaction to achieve the effect of static images can not be achieved:

1, organized a large number of static images simply can not carry information; let different role users come here with different purposes, you can interact to see the information they need.
2, through interactive behavior, users can according to their own purposes and interpretation of the data ideas to see different data.
3, interactive key information more clearly show up.
These three points are particularly in line with the "bias to explore" information visualization requirements.

For the display class design, we are in the director of a movie, so you can use more animation, and for the exploration of the class design, we are designing the user's exploration behavior, so you can use more interaction.

Finally, please discuss: do the design report is doing video demo is good or do interactive demo good?

(This article comes from Tencent CDC blog: http://cdc.tencent.com/?p=5742)