Intermittent water supply is a major challenge in informal settlements (slums) in Nairobi, Kenya. Smart water man- agement is an emerging technology that uses sensory net- works for continuous monitoring of water infrastructure to detect anomalies and inform effective distribution of wa- ter resources. This thesis investigates how visualization of data collected from the water network can support the lo- cal water utility in the Nairobi slums in improving water distribution, including maintenance and development. An explorative qualitative study, including interviews with util- ity staff members and field observations informed the devel- opment of three conceptual prototypes to propose how the collected data could be incorporated in the water utility’s practices. The design of the prototypes lead to a discussion on how smart water management can be adapted to the specific challenges of the context. The thesis concludes by suggesting that a successful implementation of smart water management, besides supporting efforts directly related to the slum areas, must also address the problems of inefficient and inequitable water allocation concerning the whole city of Nairobi. ­­ / Oregelbunden vattenförsörjning är en stor utmaning i informella bosättningar (slumområden), i Nairobi, Kenya. Smart water management är ett ny tekniskt område som använder sensornätverk för kontinuerlig övervakning av vatteninfrastrukturer för att upptäcka avvikelser, som t.ex. läckage, och informera effektiv distribution av vattenresurser. Denna studie undersöker hur visualisering av data som samlats från vattennätet kan stödja det lokala vattenbolaget i Nairobi i arbetet med att förbättra vattendistributionen, inklusive underhåll och utbyggnad. En explorativ kvalitativ förstudie baserad på intervjuer med anställda på vattenbolaget och fältobservationer användes som underlag för en designprocess av interaktiva datavisualiseringar. I designprocessen skapades tre konceptuella prototyper som exemplifierar hur den insamlade datan skulle kunna inkorporeras i vattenbolagets praxis. Utformningen av prototyperna ledde till en diskussion om hur smart water management kan anpassas till de särskilda förutsättningarna i Nairobis informella bosättningar.  En lyckad implementation av smart water management måste, förutom att stödja de insatser direkt relaterade till de informella bosättningarna, också adressera problematiken gällande ineffektiv och ojämlik fördelningen av vattenresurser i hela staden Nairobi.

As datasets in general grow in size and complexity over time while the human cognitive ability to interpret said datasets essentially stays the same, it becomes important to enable intuitive visualization methods for analysis. Based on previous research in the field of information visualization and visual analytics, a dashboard visualization prototype handling real-time event based traffic was implemented and evaluated. The real-time data is collected by a script and sent to a self-implemented web server that opens up a websocket connection with the dashboard client where the data is then visualized. Said data consisted of transactions and related metadata of an ecommerce retail site applied to a real customer scenario. The dashboard was developed using an agile method, continuously involving the thesis supervisor in the design and functionality process. The final design also depended on the results of an interview with a representative from one of the two target groups. The two target groups consisted of 5 novice and 5 expert users to the field of information visualization and visual analytics. The intuitiveness of the dashboard visualization prototype was evaluated by conducting two user studies, one for each target group, where the test subjects were asked to interact with the dashboard visualization, answer some questions and lastly solving a predefined set of tasks. The time spent solving said tasks, the amount of serious misinterpretations and the number of wrong answers was recorded and evaluated. The results from the user study showed that the use of colors, icons, level on animation, the choice of visualization method and level of interaction were the most important aspects for carrying out an efficient analytical process according to the test subjects. The test subjects desired to zoom in on each component, to filter the contents of the dashboard and to get additional information about the components on-demand. The most important result produced from developing the dashboard was how to handle the scalability of the application. It is highly important that the websocket connection remain stable when scaling out to handle more concurrent HTTP requests. The research also conclude that the dashboard should handle visualization methods that are intuitive for all users, that the real-time data needs to be put into relation to historical data if one wishes to carry out a valid analytical process and that real-time data can be used to discover trends and patterns in an early-as-possible stage. Lastly, the research provides a set of guidelines for scalability, modularity, intuitiveness and relations between datasets.

This work presents an interactive visualization tool for video content searching for lecture videos in a flipped classroom course Visualization. The search is performed using the video caption with a client-site search engine Lunr. The tool aims to improve accessibility to course video materials and enhance learning engagement, especially when students re-watch the videos. The work focus on using interactive visualization method to help users understand the results and seek video chapters of interest. We evaluate the tool with a survey, usability tests using think-aloud protocols, and semi-structured interviews. The results show that overall students find the tool easy to learn and are willing to use it in Visualization and other future courses. The evaluation transcripts are categorized and interpreted into themes with help of content analysis. This work also presents implications in design and implementation for future projects. / Division of Computational Science and Technology, KTH Royal Institute of Technology Detta arbete presenteras ett interaktivt visualiseringsverktyg för sökning av videoinnehåll för föreläsningsvideor i en flippade klassrummet-kurs Visualisering. Sökningen utförs med hjälp av videobildtexten med en sökmotor Lunr på klientsidan. Verktyget syftar till att förbättra tillgängligheten till kursens videomaterial och öka engagemanget i inlärningen, särskilt när eleverna ser videorna på nytt. Arbetet fokuserar på att använda en interaktiv visualiseringsmetod för att hjälpa användarna att förstå resultaten och söka videoklipp av intresse. Vi utvärderar verktyget med hjälp av en enkät, användbarhetstester med hjälp av Tänk–högt–metoden och semistrukturerade intervjuer. Resultaten visar att studenterna överlag tycker att verktyget är lätt att lära sig och är villiga att använda det i visualisering och andra framtida kurser. Utvärderingsutskrifterna kategoriseras och tolkas i teman med hjälp av innehållsanalys. Detta arbete presenteras också implikationer i utformning och genomförande för framtida projekt.

Background. In today’s competitive world, dealing with real-time streaming data is a difficult task to be achieved by many organizations. The importance of real time streaming data is rapidly increasing in all software industries by passing time. For quick growth of the companies, the data should be analysed immediately as data will be changing in fraction of second. The huge data will be generated every day and it will lead to problems such as overload of resources, Performance delays etc.., Which in turn will impact behaviour of the system. Finding the problem area in real time is difficult task to achieve as the data changes every second. Dealing with detection of bottlenecks and making decisions to handle the problem area, based on the real time data has been slow over the past years. It is also complicated due to time and effort required for storing and analysing. Organizations are not intended to wait for decision making information up to weeks or months. Organizations need to make an timely-accurate decisions by detecting problem area, in real time to improve their business support systems behaviour and performance. One of the better solutions is through data visualization as an approach. The visualizations are developed and evaluated by using task based approach. The data is collected using interviews and paper survey, to obtain the effective and efficient visualization in detecting bottlenecks. Objectives. The main objective is to find the most effective and efficient data visualization technique for real time streaming data to detect potential bottlenecks. Methods. In this research study, an action research is opted to answer the objectives. We have used interviews and paper survey to collect data in the terms of performance time, accuracy rate and user preference. Data analysis is performed using the Statistical tests and Narrative analysis method. Results. The final results obtained are the effective and efficient visualization techniques based on less performance time, higher accuracy rate and better user preference. Conclusions. An effective and efficient visualization technique for detection of bottlenecks is obtained for real time streaming data. Different categories of tasks has been used to obtain accurate results.

Computational creativity is an active area of research within the artificial intelligence domain that investigates what aspects of computing can be considered as an analogue to the human creative process. Computers can be programmed to emulate the type of things that the human mind can. Artificial creativity is worthy of study for two reasons. Firstly, it can help in understanding human creativity and secondly it can help with the design of computer programs that appear to be creative. Although the implementation of creativity in computer algorithms is an active field, much of the research fails to specify which of the known theories of creativity it is aligning with. The combination of computational creativity with computer generated visualisations has the potential to produce visualisations that are context sensitive with respect to the data and could solve some of the current automation problems that computers experience. In addition theories of creativity could theoretically compute unusual data combinations, or introducing graphical elements that draw attention to the patterns in the data. More could be learned about the creativity involved as humans go about the task of generating a visualisation. The purpose of this dissertation was to develop a computer program that can automate the generation of a visualisation, for a suitably chosen visualisation type over a small domain of knowledge, using a subset of the computational creativity criteria, in order to try and explore the effects of the introduction of conceptual blending techniques. The problem is that existing computer programs that generate visualisations are lacking the creativity, intuition, background information, and visual perception that enable a human to decide what aspects of the visualisation will expose patterns that are useful to the consumer of the visualisation. The main research question that guided this dissertation was, “How can criteria derived from theories of creativity be used in the generation of visualisations?”. In order to answer this question an analysis was done to determine which creativity theories and artificial intelligence techniques could potentially be used to implement the theories in the context of those relevant to computer generated visualisations. Measurable attributes and criteria that were sufficient for an algorithm that claims to model creativity were explored. The parts of the visualisation pipeline were identified and the aspects of visualisation generation that humans are better at than computers was explored. Themes that emerged in both the computational creativity and the visualisation literature were highlighted. Finally a prototype was built that started to investigate the use of computational creativity methods in the ‘variable choice’, and ‘aesthetics’ stages of the data visualisation pipeline. / School of Computing / M. Sc. (Computing)

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, less than half of all adults in the US meet basic physical activity guidelines. Physical activity can help not just improve physical and mental health but also reduce the risk of heart disease and some cancers. Researchers and companies have tried to investigate the use of modern technologies to motivate people to increase and maintain physical activities. However, in spite of these efforts, there are criticisms. Those include low dietary effectiveness of the tools, lack of sustainable effects in the long-term, and proof of effectiveness only shown in laboratory settings. To overcome these limitations, first, the author developed a framework of overarching motivation theories and HCI factors and contextualized it within the running domain. Second, the author has developed a mobile application called HamkeRun within this framework, using the concepts of information visualization, gamification, and social grouping to increase a user’s motivation to run more frequently. Third, the HamkeRun application was empirically tested through a two-month-long longitudinal experiment and follow-up interviews. The results showed that the single runner type showed significant increases in the levels of their external motivation (motivational effect of the HamkeRun application), internal motivation and satisfaction, while the team runner type showed significant increases only in internal motivation. In addition, motivational effects were also different depending on the runners’ behavior change stage. Runners at the maintenance stage showed significant increases in external motivation, internal motivation, satisfaction, and total number of running activities performed during the study. Although action stage runners showed significant increase in internal motivation, female runners at the action stage showed significant decrease in their external motivation. Gamification greatly influenced increases of external motivation, internal motivation and total number of actual activities. Although both male and female runners showed increased internal motivation, significant increase in external motivation was only found in male runners. The dissertation closes with a series of design guidelines for application developers and designers which may help develop motivational tools in other health-related domains.

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In this project a dashboard was created on behalf of the company Combitech who wanted to visualize a part of a workgroup’s information flow in hope of improving their communication. The only restriction was that it could not be interactive. The focus and goal with this study was to explore what factors one should keep in mind when designing a non-interactive dashboard. The two main theories used to guide this work were: information visualization and accessibility (focus on color vision deficiency). Designing digital products with accessibility needs in mind is not standard practice, but needs to be as society is becoming more filled with them. The process of creating the dashboard started with a literature review to read relevant works to gain insight. Interviews and user evaluations were conducted to gather insight from the users. An accessibility evaluation was performed to check for potential accessibility problems with the design. The result of the study suggests that information visualization and accessibility can be used together to produce a non-interactive dashboard that is viewed as both useful and appealing. The aspects used to achieve this were: understanding and involving the users to be able to prioritize information, being aware of how human perception works and how to apply color in an accessible way. / I detta projekt skapades en dashboard på uppdrag av företaget Combitech som ville visualisera en del av en av deras arbetsgruppers informationsflöde i hopp om att förbättra deras kommunikation. Den enda begränsningen var att den inte kunde vara interaktiv. Fokuset och målet med denna studie var att utforska vilka faktorer man bör tänka på när man designar en icke-interaktiv dashboard. De två huvudsakliga teorierna som användes för att styra detta arbete var: informationsvisualisering och tillgänglighet (fokus på defekt färgseende). Att designa digitala produkter med tillgänglighetsbehov i åtanke är inte standardpraxis, men behöver bli det då samhället blir mer fyllt av dem.  Processen att skapa dashboarden började med en litteraturgenomgång för att läsa relevanta verk för att få insikt. Intervjuer och användarutvärderingar genomfördes för att samla åsikter från användarna. En tillgänglighetsutvärdering gjordes för att kontrollera eventuella tillgänglighetsproblem med designen.   Resultatet av studien tyder på att informationsvisualisering och tillgänglighet kan användas tillsammans för att skapa en icke-interaktiv dashboard som ses som både användbar och tilltalande. Aspekterna som användes för att uppnå detta var: förstå och involvera användarna för att kunna prioritera information, vara medveten om hur mänsklig perception fungerar och hur man kan applicera färg på ett tillgängligt sätt.

Decentralized digital currencies are emerging in today’s society. Bitcoin was the first to surface in late 2009, and today there are thousands of digital currencies with various properties. The vast amount of transaction data being generated from decentralized systems can be difficult to comprehend. Information visualization can be used to simplify this apprehension difficulty. It is a tool that allows us to effectively understand complex data by projecting it to a visual medium. This is a research study on multiple stakeholders for a web-based real-time decision support system for visualizing transaction data in a global decentralized financial system and set out to explore the stakeholders requirements in order to provide them support. To achieve this, an exploratory interview was conducted in order to gain knowledge of the requirements for each type of stakeholders. After which, a prototype of the decision support system was made, built upon the requirements and fundamental principles in information visualization. The prototype is web compliant with room for configurations to personalize. It is best suited for an overview. Complementary research could be additional studies on the stakeholders to improve the usability or develop additional supportive features to make it a smart system. / Decentraliserade digitala valutor växer fram i dagens samhälle. Bitcoin var den första som skapades i slutet av 2009 och idag finns det tusentals digitala valutor med olika egenskaper. Den stora mängd transaktionsdata som genereras från decentraliserade system kan vara svår att förstå. Informationsvisualisering kan användas för att förenkla denna förståelsen. Det är ett verktyg som gör det möjligt för oss att effektivt förstå komplex data genom att projicera det till ett visuellt medium. Detta är en undersökning på multipla användare för ett webbaserat realtid beslutstödssystem för att visualisera transaktionsdata i ett globalt decentraliserat finansiellt system med mål att utarbeta användarnas krav för att kunna ge dom stöd. För att uppnå detta genomfördes en förberedande intervju för att få kunskap om kraven för varje typ av användare. Därefter gjordes en prototyp av beslutsstödsystemet, byggt på kraven och grundläggande principer för informationsvisualisering. Prototypen är webkompatibel med utrymme för konfigurationer för att personifiera. Den passar bäst för att ge en översikt. Kompletterande forskning kan vara ytterligare studier på intressenterna för att förbättra användbarheten eller utveckla ytterligare stödfunktioner för att göra det till ett smart system.