Collection understanding shifts the traditional focus of retrieval in large collections from locating specific artifacts to gaining a comprehensive view of the collection. Visualization tools are critical to the process of efficient collection understanding. By presenting simple visual interfaces and intuitive methods of interacting with a collection, users come to understand the essence of the collection by focusing on the artifacts. This thesis discusses a practical approach for enhancing collection understanding in image collections.

<p>This thesis is concerned with the design, development, and evaluation of information visualization tools for supporting exploratory browsing. Information retrieval (IR) systems currently do not support browsing well. Responding to user queries, IR systems typically compute relevance scores of documents and then present the document surrogates to users in order of relevance. Other systems such as email clients and discussion forums simply arrange messages in reverse chronological order. Using these systems, people cannot gain an overview of a collection easily, nor do they receive adequate support for finding potentially useful items in the collection.</p> <p>This thesis explores the feasibility of using social interaction history to improve exploratory browsing. Social interaction history refers to traces of interaction among users in an information space, such as discussions that happen in the blogosphere or online newspapers through the commenting facility. The basic hypothesis of this work is that social interaction history can serve as a good indicator of the potential value of information items. Therefore, visualization of social interaction history would offer navigational cues for finding potentially valuable information items in a collection.</p> <p>To test this basic hypothesis, I conducted three studies. First, I ran statistical analysis of a social media data set. The results showed that there were positive relationships between traces of social interaction and the degree of interestingness of web articles. Second, I conducted a feasibility study to collect initial feedback about the potential of social interaction history to support information exploration. Comments from the participants were in line with the research hypothesis. Finally, I conducted a summative evaluation to measure how well visualization of social interaction history can improve exploratory browsing. The results showed that visualization of social interaction history was able to help users find interesting articles, to reduce wasted effort, and to increase user satisfaction with the visualization tool.</p>

Visualization enables new forms of social expression beyond the support of scientific data analysis. Focusing on the expanded roles of computational visualization, I investigate the influences of computation on the aesthetics and the rhetoric of visualization through design research methods. My design research includes 1) the construction of knowledge by synthesizing literature from digital media studies, visual rhetoric, information visualization, graphic design history, and HCI and 2) research through practices and consequent critiques. Coded visualization is a new term that I coined to integrate the rhetoric and aesthetics of data visualization. I define it as a data-based interface whose visual form is an aesthetic space where messages are coded and interpreted with cultural references. I also suggest the design criteria of coded visualization, apply them to a design project, and critique how the current design of the project can be improved to fully exemplify the concept of coded visualization. This study on the rhetoric and aesthetics of visualization through design research contributes to digital media studies, design research, as well as information visualization.

<p>This thesis is concerned with the design, development, and evaluation of information visualization tools for supporting exploratory browsing. Information retrieval (IR) systems currently do not support browsing well. Responding to user queries, IR systems typically compute relevance scores of documents and then present the document surrogates to users in order of relevance. Other systems such as email clients and discussion forums simply arrange messages in reverse chronological order. Using these systems, people cannot gain an overview of a collection easily, nor do they receive adequate support for finding potentially useful items in the collection.</p> <p>This thesis explores the feasibility of using social interaction history to improve exploratory browsing. Social interaction history refers to traces of interaction among users in an information space, such as discussions that happen in the blogosphere or online newspapers through the commenting facility. The basic hypothesis of this work is that social interaction history can serve as a good indicator of the potential value of information items. Therefore, visualization of social interaction history would offer navigational cues for finding potentially valuable information items in a collection.</p> <p>To test this basic hypothesis, I conducted three studies. First, I ran statistical analysis of a social media data set. The results showed that there were positive relationships between traces of social interaction and the degree of interestingness of web articles. Second, I conducted a feasibility study to collect initial feedback about the potential of social interaction history to support information exploration. Comments from the participants were in line with the research hypothesis. Finally, I conducted a summative evaluation to measure how well visualization of social interaction history can improve exploratory browsing. The results showed that visualization of social interaction history was able to help users find interesting articles, to reduce wasted effort, and to increase user satisfaction with the visualization tool.</p>

<p>Målet med detta examensarbete är att ta fram ett gränsnitt för navigering i stora datamängder samt undersöka eventuella styrkor och svagheter hos detta gränsnitt. Bakgrunden till projektet är att företaget Analog Software utvecklar ett system som automatiskt skall klassificera objekt i en datamängd och sedan presentera denna klassificerade datamängd.</p><p>Gränsnittet skall stödja en informationssökningsstrategi som benämns ”browsing”. En teknik för visualisering av information som varit framgångsrik är den så kallade ”Fisheye-tekniken” som baseras på en analogi med en vidvinkellins. Tekniken visar lokal information med hög detaljrikedom samtidigt som den visar global information med låg detaljrikedom.</p><p>Ett flertal gränssnitt har använt sig av denna teknik för visualisering av information. I detta arbete har ett textbaserat Fisheye-gränssnitt tagits fram och testat med avseende på två olika funktioner. De två funktionerna är ”anomalier” och ”stöd för bokmärken”.</p><p>Hypoteserna var:</p><p>1. Om anomalier fanns i datastrukturen så skulle en Fisheye-teknik förstärka dessa.</p><p>2. En bokmärkesfunktion skall ej behövas då Fisheye-tekniken erbjuder global kontext och byte av fokus går snabbt.</p><p>Två experiment utfördes med 28 försökspersoner. I experiment 1 använde hälften av försökspersonerna ett standargränssnitt och hälften ett Fisheye-gränssnitt. De fick navigera i en datamängd sorterad på två olika sätt och ange om det upplevde sorteringen som naturlig eller konstig.</p><p>I experimet 2 ingick samma försökspersoner som i experiment 1. I detta experiment fick hälften navigera med ett Fisheye-gränsnitt med bokmärkesfunktion och hälften med ett Fisheye-gränssnitt utan bokmärkesfunktion. De skulle navigera i en datamängd och svara på ett antal frågor.</p><p>Resultaten visade att Hypotes 1 kunde förkastas. Försökspersonerna som använde sig av Fisheye-gränsittet upplevde datamängden att vara mer naturlig än den grupp som använt sig av ett standardgränssnitt. För hypotes 2 kunde inga säkra slutsatser dra på grund av att experimentet inte lyckades mäta det som avsågs att mätas.</p>

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 160-171).

Thesis (M.S.)--Mississippi State University. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--Mississippi State University. Department of Computer Science. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.F.A.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 2009. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaf 40).

Thesis (Ph.D)--Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2010. / Committee Chair: Gregory Abowd; Committee Member: Elle Yi-Luen Do; Committee Member: James Foley; Committee Member: John Peponis; Committee Member: John Stasko. Part of the SMARTech Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Collection.