This thesis investigates the effect of incorporating various information visualisation techniques and non-speech sounds (i.e. auditory icons and earcons) in email browsing. This empirical work consisted of three experimental phases. The first experimental phase aimed at finding out the most usable visualisation techniques for presenting email information. This experiment involved the development of two experimental email visualisation approaches which were called LinearVis and MatrixVis. These approaches visualised email messages based on a dateline together with various types of email information such as the time and the senders. The findings of this experiment were used as a basis for the development of a further email visualisation approach which was called LinearVis II. This novel approach presented email data based on multi-coordinated views. The usability of messages retrieval in this approach was investigated and compared to a typical email client in the second experimental phase. Users were required to retrieve email messages in the two experiments with the provided relevant information such as the subject, status and priority. The third experimental phase aimed at exploring the usability of retrieving email messages by using other type of email data, particularly email threads. This experiment investigated the synergic use of graphical representations with non-speech sounds (Multimodal Metaphors), graphical representations and textual display to present email threads and to communicate contextual information about email threads. The findings of this empirical study demonstrated that there is a high potential for using information visualisation techniques and non-speech sounds (i.e. auditory icons and earcons) to improve the usability of email message retrieval. Furthermore, the thesis concludes with a set of empirically derived guidelines for the use of information visualisation techniques and non-speech sound to improve email browsing.

The arrival of E-commerce systems have contributed greatly to the economy and have played a vital role in collecting a huge amount of transactional data. It is becoming difficult day by day to analyse business and consumer behaviour with the production of such a colossal volume of data. Enterprise 2.0 has the ability to store and create an enormous amount of transactional data; the purpose for which data was collected could quite easily be disassociated as the essential information goes unnoticed in large and complex data sets. The information overflow is a major contributor to the dilemma. In the current environment, where hardware systems have the ability to store such large volumes of data and the software systems have the capability of substantial data production, data exploration problems are on the rise. The problem is not with the production or storage of data but with the effectiveness of the systems and techniques where essential information could be retrieved from complex data sets in a comprehensive and logical approach as the data questions are asked. Using the existing information retrieval systems and visualisation tools, the more specific questions are asked, the more definitive and unambiguous are the visualised results that could be attained, but when it comes to complex and large data sets there are no elementary or simple questions. Therefore a profound information visualisation model and system is required to analyse complex data sets through data analysis and information visualisation, to make it possible for the decision makers to identify the expected and discover the unexpected. In order to address complex data problems, a comprehensive and robust visualisation model and system is introduced. The visualisation model consists of four major layers, (i) acquisition and data analysis, (ii) data representation, (iii) user and computer interaction and (iv) results repositories. There are major contributions in all four layers but particularly in data acquisition and data representation. Multiple attribute and dimensional data visualisation techniques are identified in Enterprise 2.0 and Web 2.0 environment. Transactional tagging and linked data are unearthed which is a novel contribution in information visualisation. The visualisation model and system is first realised as a tangible software system, which is then validated through different and large types of data sets in three experiments. The first experiment is based on the large Royal Mail postcode data set. The second experiment is based on a large transactional data set in an enterprise environment while the same data set is processed in a non-enterprise environment. The system interaction facilitated through new mashup techniques enables users to interact more fluently with data and the representation layer. The results are exported into various reusable formats and retrieved for further comparison and analysis purposes. The information visualisation model introduced in this research is a compact process for any size and type of data set which is a major contribution in information visualisation and data analysis. Advanced data representation techniques are employed using various web mashup technologies. New visualisation techniques have emerged from the research such as transactional tagging visualisation and linked data visualisation. The information visualisation model and system is extremely useful in addressing complex data problems with strategies that are easy to interact with and integrate.

Searching for food recipes online is a common task for many people in an increasingly digitalised society. Sweden has, as many countries, local recipes, seasonal products, cultural dinners and measurement and weight standards that can differ from other coun- tries. However general searches for Swedish recipes at common search engines can pose several difficulties. For example that users can’t filter the search results by recipes and that there can be difficulties with ambiguous semantic evaluations of the users’ search queries. Aspects considered in this thesis are also how the user search process could be facilitated by using recipe labels and graphical visualisations of the information. The ambition of this thesis is investigate how online recipe search can be made more effi- cient for people looking for Swedish recipes in Swedish. An initial user survey with a questionnaire was conducted to understand the po- tential requirements for the development of a tool to support online search of Swedish recipes. More specifically, the survey inquired about users’ current search experience and tried to identify useful search criteria. The results showed that 82.4% of the par- ticipants prefer to search for recipes online via a search engine, compared with other alternatives such as searching at specific recipe sites. The main difficulty the partici- pants experienced with that search approach was that many of the search results were not recipes but other types of search results. Most participants preferred to see more in- formative recipe items in the search results list. However at the same time, some recipe labels that were present were not actually noticed by most participants. The survey also investigated further what information that could be more appropriate to show about the recipes. Based on the outcomes from the survey study, a prototype application was then developed that targets for Swedish recipe search. The purpose of the prototype is to im- plement the search criteria identified from the survey and to provide enhancements. By developing this prototype, the search criteria could be tested by users on the prototype. A second user survey with a questionnaire was then conducted, evaluating the usabil- ity of the prototype. The prototype shows to offer improvements in filtering the search results to only show Swedish recipes, presenting more relevant recipe information and also improvements in visualising the information in the recipes in the search result list.

This MSc Thesis was performed during a special practice at The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK. In recent years a number of new approaches for visualising and browsing document collections have been developed. These approaches try to address the problems associated with the growing amounts of content available and the changing patterns in the way people interact with information. Users now demand better support for exploring document collections to discover connections, compare and contrast information. Although visual search interfaces have the potential to improve the user experience in exploring document collections compared to textual search interfaces, they have not yet become as popular among users. The reasons for this range from the design of such visual interfaces to the way these interfaces are implemented and used. This work studies these reasons and determines the factors that contribute to an improved visual browsing experience. Consequently, by taking these factors into account, a novel visual search interface that improves exploratory search and the discovery of document relations is designed, implemented and evaluated.

A learning analytics dashboard (LAD) is an application that illustrates the activity and progress of a user in a self-regulated, online learning environment. This tool mines source data to provide meaningful information that supports decision making and positively impacts learning behaviour. Research on this topic explores how learning activities and pedagogical goals are impacted by integrating LADs into learning and/or teaching environments. Currently, the majority of the research is centred around predicting student academic performance and identifying students that are at risk of failing. The popularity of integrating technology into educational practices has led to the adoption of LADs into learning management systems (LMS) or massive open online courses (MOOCs). The objective of this paper is to develop a concept for a standalone prototype LAD, for an Introductory Statistics course (STA 1000), to be potentially integrated into the University of Cape Town's (UCT) LMS, Vula. The dashboard aims to create and incorporate meaningful visualisations, that have the potential to primarily assist students as well as educators. Visualised information in the LAD aims to positively impact students to enhance and drive effective learning, which could consequentially aid educators. Additionally, the dashboard will aim to provide actionable feedback, derived from predictive modelling and course analytics, that positively impacts learning behaviour and identifies factors that the student could most effectively use to leverage their chances of passing and improve academic performance. Predictive analytics aim to identify academic factors, that a student has control over, such as course assessments and engagement variables, at certain time points in the academic semester and provide a useful course of action at those time points. Other than variables measured throughout the course, the predictive modelling takes certain prior academic information into consideration.

An increasing use of smartphones and other mobile devices puts pressure on user interfaces to work as well on small touch-screens as on desktop computers, and information visualisation interfaces are no exception. Even though there has been a demand for research on mobile information visualisation for many years, relatively little has been accomplished in this area, and the research that has been conducted is often narrow and oriented toward to a certain design. Therefore, this paper aims to give more general recommendations regarding the design of information visualisation interfaces for mobile devices. A qualitative user study was conducted to find weaknesses and strengths in existing information visualisation interfaces when interacted with on a smartphone. For this study, five prototypes were made by which different visualisations and interaction methods were tested by the participants of the study. The participants were given tasks based on the Visual Information Seeking Mantra, which focuses on four types of interaction with information visualisations (overview, zoom, filter and details-on-demand). The results indicate that the interaction with a visualisation is more important than visualisation itself to achieve a useful and efficient information visualisation interface. Other aspects to consider is to have an adequate zoom function, to not have interactive objects that are too small and to avoid over-cluttering. The latter aspect can be solved by either taking advantage of gestures or using more layers in the interface. However, what visualisations and interaction methods that work best is heavily dependent on the data and purpose of the visualisation / En ökande användning av smartphones och andra mobila enheter sätter press på användargränssnitt att fungera lika bra på små pekskärmar som på stationära datorer, och gränssnitt för informationsvisualisering är inget undantag. Trots att det har funnits en efterfrågan på forskning om mobil informationsvisualisering under många år har relativt lite uppnåtts inom detta område, samt att den forskning som har utförts ofta är smal och inriktad mot en viss design. Därför är syftet för denna forskningsartikel att ge mer allmänna rekommendationer om utformningen av gränssnitt för informationsvisualisering på mobila enheter. En kvalitativ användarstudie genomfördes för att hitta svagheter och styrkor i befintliga gränssnitt vid interaktion med en smartphone. För denna studie gjordes fem prototyper genom vilka olika visualiseringar och interaktionsmetoder testades av deltagarna i studien. Deltagarna fick uppgifter baserade på et mantra kallat ”the Visual Information Seeking Mantra”, som fokuserar på fyra typer av interaktion med informationsvisualiseringar. Resultaten indikerar att interaktionen med en visualisering är viktigare än själva visualiseringen för att uppnå ett användbart och effektivt informationsvisualiseringsgränssnitt. Andra aspekter att tänka på är att ha en effektiv zoomfunktion, att inte ha interaktiva objekt som är för små och att undvika att ha för många objekt på ett litet område. Den senare aspekten kan lösas genom att antingen dra fördel av gester eller använda fler lager i gränssnittet. Vilka visualiseringar och interaktionsmetoder som fungerar bäst är dock starkt beroende av data och syftet med visualiseringen.

This thesis investigates the effect of incorporating various information visualisation techniques and non-speech sounds (i.e. auditory icons and earcons) in email browsing. This empirical work consisted of three experimental phases. The first experimental phase aimed at finding out the most usable visualisation techniques for presenting email information. This experiment involved the development of two experimental email visualisation approaches which were called LinearVis and MatrixVis. These approaches visualised email messages based on a dateline together with various types of email information such as the time and the senders. The findings of this experiment were used as a basis for the development of a further email visualisation approach which was called LinearVis II. This novel approach presented email data based on multi-coordinated views. The usability of messages retrieval in this approach was investigated and compared to a typical email client in the second experimental phase. Users were required to retrieve email messages in the two experiments with the provided relevant information such as the subject, status and priority. The third experimental phase aimed at exploring the usability of retrieving email messages by using other type of email data, particularly email threads. This experiment investigated the synergic use of graphical representations with non-speech sounds (Multimodal Metaphors), graphical representations and textual display to present email threads and to communicate contextual information about email threads. The findings of this empirical study demonstrated that there is a high potential for using information visualisation techniques and non-speech sounds (i.e. auditory icons and earcons) to improve the usability of email message retrieval. Furthermore, the thesis concludes with a set of empirically derived guidelines for the use of information visualisation techniques and non-speech sound to improve email browsing. / Taibah University in Medina and the Ministry of Higher Education in Saudi Arabia.

Context. 3D visualisations are highly demanded in different industries such as virtual factories. However, the benefits that 3D representations can bring to this industry have not been fully explored, being most of the representations either photorealistic or presenting abstract visualisations. Objectives. This thesis explores and compares two prototypes that present a visualisation of the process state of a factory. The first prototype presents a generic interface in which primitive 3D shapes convey the information of the factory status. The second prototype is complemented with specific and iconic 3D models of the factory that help the users associating the conveyed information to the factory flow. The motivation behind this dissertation is that the type of generic interface presented can lead to more reusable interfaces in the future. Methods. For the creation and development of the prototypes, the user-centered design process was followed in which the designs are iterated with users of the factory. Based on the two prototypes, a usability evaluation is conducted to analyse the perceived usability and the usability performance. This is complemented with post-interviews with all the participants. The results are presented attending to the triangulation methodology to support the strength of the qualitative findings. Conclusions. The results show that both interfaces are perceived as highly usable. However, the 3D iconic interface seemed to help the users more in depicting a better mental model of the factory flow, helping the users to complete most of the tasks with faster times. / This thesis explores and compares two prototypes that present a visualisation of the process state of a factory. The first prototype presents a generic interface in which primitive 3D shapes convey the information of the factory status. The second prototype is complemented with specific and iconic 3D models of the factory that help the users associating the conveyed information to the factory flow. The motivation behind this dissertation is that the type of generic interface presented can lead to more reusable interfaces in the future.

Visual Analytics is a multi-disciplinary field that uses interactive visualisations to promote and assist the analytic reasoning and generate insights. Understanding the perceptual and cognitive factors is key to the progress in this field. This research focuses on understanding the benefits of interaction in terms of insight generation Moreover, this investigation explores the compounding effects individual differences have with interaction when analysing data to generate insights. This study investigated the individual differences in two sets; psychometric set measures, and a sensorial preferences multimodal learning style. Interaction was analysed from an information visualisation perspective, exploring the Visual Mapping and View Transformation interaction, by isolating interaction as an independent variable. Moreover, the View Transformation experiment used two different visual representations 2D and 3D. Additionally, the individual differences were analysed using the aptitude-by-treatment interaction (ATI) methodology. The ATI approach enabled the assessment of the performance gains in terms of insight generation according to pre-defined set levels of individual differences measures. This thesis confirms the benefits of interaction in generating more insights and increasing their accuracy, whilst facilitating the generation of insights requiring lower mental effort. Further, the results show significant conjoint effects between interaction and individual differences. Furthermore this research revealed a performance difference between 2D and 3D visual representation in the serious game problem solving context. Overall, this thesis provides tangible proof that both visual mapping and view transformation interaction are beneficial to visual analytics in generating insights. Strengthening the view that interaction with the problem-set improves understanding, and the number of insights gleaned into the problem and that more research into the use of individual differences, as a performance predictor in Visual Analytics is beneficial.

Neuroscientists are increasingly overwhelmed by new recordings of the nervous system. These recordings are significantly increasing in size due to new electrophysiological techniques, such as multi-electrode arrays. These techniques can simultaneously record the electrical activity (or spike trains) from thousands of neurons. These new datasets are larger than the traditional datasets recorded from single electrodes where fewer than ten spike trains are usually recorded. Consequently, new tools are now required to effectively analyse these new datasets. This thesis describes how techniques from the field of Visual Analytics can be applied to detect specific patterns in spike train data. These techniques are realised in a software tool called Neurigma. Neurigma is a collection of visual representations of spike train data that are unified to provide a coordinated representation of the data. The visual representations within Neurigma include: an interactive raster plot, an improved correlation grid, a novel representation called the correlation plot (which includes a novel coupling estimation algorithm), and a novel network diagram. These views provide insight into spike train data, and particularly, they identify correlated patterns, called functional connectivity. Within this thesis Neurigma is used to analyse synthetically generated datasets and experimental recordings. Three main findings are presented. First, propagating spiral patterns are identified within recordings from the neonatal mouse retina. Second, functional connectivity is identified within the cat visual cortex. Finally, the functional connectivity of a large synthetic dataset, of 1000 spike trains, is accurately classified into direct, indirect and common input coupling.