Using guidelines to assist in the visualisation design process

• Authors: Keith V. Nesbitt
• Venue: APVis '05 proceedings of the 2005 Asia-Pacific symposium on Information visualisation - Volume 45
• Year: 2005

The design process of any visualisation involves many design decisions. One way to assist with these design decisions is to provide guidelines. This paper introduces the MS-Guidelines and the rationale behind them. The MS-Guidelines form a group of structured guidelines intended to help in designing not just visual but also multi-sensory displays of abstract data. They are organised by using the structure and concepts of the MS-Taxonomy. This taxonomy functions as a framework that allows guidelines to be categorised at different levels of detail. High-level or general guidelines can support early design considerations. More detailed, low-level guidelines provide support for more specific design decisions. To assist the designer use the guidelines they are incorporated into a multi-sensory design process called the MS-Process. An introduction to the MS-Taxonomy and the MS-Process is provided and discussed briefly in the context of information visualisation. A summary of the MS-Guidelines for visual display design are also presented.