Information Visualization in Computing and Related Sciences: Evidence from Top Journals

Abstract: Information visualization provides a ready and potentially powerful mechanism for communicating research results. Understanding how visualizations are used in scientific discourse is one way to characterize this discourse, as well as to identify opportunities for expanding or refining it. This article proposes a systematic framework for classifying visualizations in published journal articles with respect to the data used to construct them, the processes they seek to explain, and the research goals they serve. The framework is applied to top journals in the computing and related sciences, revealing two main findings: while visualizations appear frequently in the surveyed articles, they serve a narrow band of uses relative to those encompassed by the framework. An implication of this finding is that discourse based on information visualization may be enriched by expanding the range of information visualizations found in this research, and by developing new classes of visualizations to illuminate a broader range of research results. Keywords: information visualization, taxonomy INTRODUCTION Scientists draw on the ability of different visualization techniques to help communicate their results within and across diverse research communities. In doing so, they take advantage of visualizations' potential for high information content coupled with high comprehensibility. Given the wide range of tools now available for producing information visualizations-together with ongoing expansion of topics covered by researchers-it is appropriate to assess how information visualizations have been used in scholarly publications and to identify opportunities for extending scientific discourse through their expanded use. A number of prior studies suggest how different types of visualizations are used in communicating the results of scientific investigations (e.g., Card 1996; Herman et al. 2000). A novel contribution of this work is that it proposes a systematic framework for classifying information visualizations and applies this framework to visualizations found in recent articles published in top journals in computing and related sciences. Application of the framework results in a classification of each visualization with respect to the data used to construct it, the process it seeks to explain, and the research goal it serves. Both visual and statistical methods are used to analyze the results of this classification. One conclusion of this work is that, while visualizations appear frequently in these articles, they serve a narrow band of uses relative to those encompassed by the framework. The main implication of this result is that the discourse based on information visualization may be enriched by exploring other uses of visualization and, indeed, by developing new classes of visualizations to illuminate a broader range of research results. STUDY FRAMEWORK To understand the use of visualization in communicating scientific results, visualizations are here examined using a framework of four interrelated activities associated with the conduct of scientific research: the goals of the work, the processes under investigation, the data associated with these processes, and the visualizations used to communicate the results. As discussed more fully below, this framework provides a mechanism for classifying visualizations in relation to the nature of the research they are intended to support. A taxonomy of goals of research activities in the computing sciences is given by Leigh (1992) in the context of systems theory. In this taxonomy, a system is defined as a set of elements interconnected by information links in a boundary surrounded by the environment. Leigh offers three goals of research on systems: system understanding, which pertains to understanding the elements and information links within the boundary, or the whole system in the context of its environment; influencing systems behavior, which pertains to manipulating the properties or characteristics of the system; and system design, which is the task of replacing either the whole system or at least one of its components so that the system exhibits particular behaviors. …