Many roads lead to Rome: mapping users' problem-solving strategies

Authors:
Eva Mayr;Michael Smuc;Hanna Risku
Affiliations:
Research Center KnowComm, Danube University Krems, Krems, Austria;Research Center KnowComm, Danube University Krems, Krems, Austria;Department of Translation Studies, University of Graz, Graz, Austria
Venue:
Information Visualization - Special issue on Evaluation for Information Visualization
Year:
2011

Citing 16
Cited 0

Being There: Putting Brain, Body, and World Together Again

Being There: Putting Brain, Body, and World Together Again
The Psychology of Human-Computer Interaction

The Psychology of Human-Computer Interaction
Coordinated Views to Assist Exploration of Spatio-Temporal Data: A Case Study

CMV '04 Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Coordinated & Multiple Views in Exploratory Visualization
BEST PAPER: A Knowledge Task-Based Framework for Design and Evaluation of Information Visualizations

INFOVIS '04 Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Information Visualization
An Insight-Based Methodology for Evaluating Bioinformatics Visualizations

IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics
Low-Level Components of Analytic Activity in Information Visualization

INFOVIS '05 Proceedings of the Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE Symposium on Information Visualization
A taxonomy of tasks for guiding the evaluation of multidimensional visualizations

Proceedings of the 2006 AVI workshop on BEyond time and errors: novel evaluation methods for information visualization
BELIV'08: Beyond time and errors: novel evaluation methods for information visualization

CHI '08 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Grounded evaluation of information visualizations

Proceedings of the 2008 Workshop on BEyond time and errors: novel evaLuation methods for Information Visualization
Creating realistic, scenario-based synthetic data for test and evaluation of information analytics software

Proceedings of the 2008 Workshop on BEyond time and errors: novel evaLuation methods for Information Visualization
Defining Insight for Visual Analytics

IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications
To Score or Not to Score? Tripling Insights for Participatory Design

IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications
Hierarchical Temporal Patterns and Interactive Aggregated Views for Pixel-Based Visualizations

IV '09 Proceedings of the 2009 13th International Conference Information Visualisation
The science of interaction

Information Visualization
Situated interaction and cognition in the wild, wild world: unleashing the power of users as innovators

Journal of Mobile Multimedia
Is your user hunting or gathering insights?: identifying insight drivers across domains

Proceedings of the 3rd BELIV'10 Workshop: BEyond time and errors: novel evaLuation methods for Information Visualization

Quantified Score

Hi-index	0.00

Visualization

Abstract

There is more than one path to a solution, especially when it comes to ill-defined problems like complex, realworld tasks. Until now, the evaluation of information visualizations has often been restricted simply to a measuring of outcomes (time and error] or insights into the data set. A more detailed look into the processes that facilitate or hinder task completion is provided by analysing user problem-solving strategies. The study presented in this paper illustrates how such processes can be assessed and how the resulting knowledge can be used in participatory design to improve a visual analytics tool. For users to be equipped with a problem solving scaffold, the tools used should allow them to choose their own path to the solution - their own route to Rome. We also discuss how the evaluation of problem-solving strategies can shed more light on the 'exploratory minds' of users.