Information Visualization
- by Shekhar Parkhi
Displays that exploit the visual potential of relationships
​
Various categories of space usages in the Suzzallo and Allen Libraries' Buildings (Display - I)
In this display, I am trying to show the viewer the different types of space usages in the Suzzallo and Allen libraries, i.e. the purpose of the libraries as a whole. This implicitely gives the viewers information on the various services offered by these two libraries as well as the different types of areas/departments within the two libraries. In this display, I am exploiting the visual potential of relationship using a hierarchical diagram. The concept hierarchy shown in the display tells the users how the total space in the libraries in divided and sub-divided. The lower one digs deep in the hierarchy, the more specific the space usage becomes.
The colors used are similar to the ones used in the model inforgraphic. The text font is the same and it is purple in color, as in the model to be emulated. The narrower the levels become in the hierarchy, the smaller the text size is kept. Moreover, the title is written on a gold ribbon-like strip as in the model inforgraphic.
The entire display as a whole is layed out just as the model infographic, with the UW logo, title, subtitle, purple background a single distinct column in white, inside which the actual content is put.
Critique Feedback
​
The first person said that the visual was quite detailed, in fact a bit too detailed. It was good to see the types of space usages in the Suzzallo and Allen libraries and indirectly the services provided by them, but too many details were provided which were a bit unnecessary. The last level of detail in the hierarchical tree diagram was unrequired, he felt. Also he did not understand the meaning nor the need of the term "Non-assigned".
The second person also shared some similar opinions as the first, that there were too many details and that the term "Non-assigned" was ambiguous. She too recommended to reduce the size of the chart by eliminating the most specific level of detail. She also suggested to scale down the diagram, depending on who the target audience for it are, for instance, the "conference space" is used mostly by the staff and faculty, whereas the "study rooms" are used usually by the students. She also said that the chart could look better as a horizontal hierarchical diagram from left to right, instead of a vertical one from top to bottom.
The third person also said that even though the diagram was clear and well organized, it contained too much information to digest all at once. According to her, the large amount of information displayed is actually distracting, instead of engaging for the viewer.
Taking into account all this, I decided to eliminated the narrowest level of detail from my hierarchy diagram. I also renamed the label "Assigned" to "Assigned space" and "Non-assigned" to "Vacant Space", to make the terms more understandable for the users. This decreased the overall size of the display significantly. However, I did not scale down my diagram as per the target audience, as my audience is evryone who visits the Suzzallo and Allen libraries, be it students, staff, faculty or even guest visitors. Moreover, I thought that if I did not include a certain type of space usage in my diagram, it would be as if I'm mis-informing the viewers that that specific space is not available or service not available in these libraries.
Various categories of space usages in the Suzzallo and Allen Libraries' Buildings (Display - II)
​
In this display, I am trying to show the viewer the different types of space usages in the Suzzallo and Allen libraries, i.e. the purpose of the libraries as a whole. This implicitely gives the viewers information on the various services offered by these two libraries as well as the different types of areas/departments within the two libraries. In this display, I am exploiting the visual potential of relationship using circles, similar to venn diagrams. The concept hierarchy shown in the display uses circles to show how the total space in the libraries in divided and sub-divided. The lower one digs deep in the hierarchy, the more specific the space usage becomes, and the smaller the circles become.
The colors used are similar to the ones used in the model inforgraphic. Circles are in one of the four colors - purple, gold, blue or gray, in the order of broadest to narrowest space usage categories. The text font is the same and it is white in color because it is used inside another element of one of those four colors, as in the model to be emulated. Moreover, the title is written on a gold ribbon-like strip as in the model inforgraphic.
The entire display as a whole is layed out just as the model infographic, with the UW logo, title, subtitle, purple background a single distinct column in white, inside which the actual content is put.
Critique Feedback
​
For my second relationship display, I received quite similar feedback from the same three people, as my first display.
The first person said that the visual was quite detailed, in fact a bit too detailed. It was good to see the types of space usages in the Suzzallo and Allen libraries and indirectly the services provided by them, but too many details were provided which were a bit unnecessary. The last level of detail in the venn diagram 9the gray circles) was unrequired, he felt. Also he did not understand the meaning nor the need of the term "Non-assigned".
The second person also shared some similar opinions as the first, that there were too many details and that the term "Non-assigned" was ambiguous. She too recommended to reduce the size of the chart by eliminating the most specific level of detail. She also suggested to scale down the diagram, depending on who the target audience for it are, for instance, the "conference space" is used mostly by the staff and faculty, whereas the "study rooms" are used usually by the students. She said that if it was scaled down, she definitely preferred this second relationship display, as it was much more visually appealing and engaging than the first. She also pointed out that some of the circles were not aligned too well.
The third person also said that even though the diagram was clear and well organized, it contained too much information to digest all at once. According to her, the large amount of information displayed is actually distracting, instead of engaging for the viewer. But, she too preferred this display to the previous. Furthermore, she also recommended to have varying sizes of the circles, depending upon their actual differnce in the amount of space used in the libraries.
Taking into account all this, I decided to eliminated the narrowest level of detail from my venn diagram (the original gray circles). I also renamed the label "Assigned" to "Assigned space" and "Non-assigned" to "Vacant Space", to make the terms more understandable for the users. This decreased the overall size of the display significantly. However, I did not scale down my diagram as per the target audience, as my audience is evryone who visits the Suzzallo and Allen libraries, be it students, staff, faculty or even guest visitors. Moreover, I thought that if I did not include a certain type of space usage in my diagram, it would be as if I'm mis-informing the viewers that that specific space is not available or service not available in these libraries. I also changed the color scheme of this display from purple-gold-blue-gray to blue-gray-white, emulating the donut chart from my model inforgraphic. I also aligned the circles properly. What I did not do was make the size of my circles proportionate to the actual space utilized in the libraries for the areas they represented. This was because the data that I had was in terms of the percentage of the total floor space used for a particular area, listed for every floor separately and for each of the two libraries separately, and not for the percentages with respect to all the spaces on all the floors combined for the two libraries as a whole. I did not want to represent inaccurate information based on my assumptions.