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There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
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Defense of Dissertation Announcement
Title: Casual Infovis: Theory and Practice
Zachary Pousman (zach@cc.gatech.edu)
Human-Centered Computing
School of Interactive Computing, Georgia Tech
Date: Monday, April 30
Time: 1 - 3:30 PM
Location: TSRB 132
Committee:
ABSTRACT
Information Visualization, the use of computer-supported interactive visual depictions to amplify human cognition, is changing as it moves into wider use as a medium for communication. Casual infovis is a critical lens on which to trace the expansion of infovis into new settings for casual data analysis including journalism, art and design, and personal data tracking. Casual infovis draws attention to the everyday insights that non-professionals in varied settings (and frequently without extrinsic motivations) find in their visual analyses.
The research presented in this dissertation spans historical, theoretical, and design-based investigations. I report on an interview study of designers working with information visualizations as a medium for communication, a series of design probes which prototype elements of casual infovis, and draw theoretical conclusions that serve to move information visualization away from its formalist and positivist beginnings. My research contributes a semiotic framework for understanding reference, and how that framework modifies and enlarges the 'information visualization pipeline', the model by which infovis researchers move from raw data to human insight. My work on systems building and interviews highlight aspects of this critical approach, and I provide conceptual tools for creating more culturally situated information visualizations.
