An empirical evaluation of three-dimensional pie charts with individually extruded sectors in a geovisualization context

Abstract

This study compares participants’ performance in extracting information from three-dimensional pie charts with individually extruded sectors in a single map frame against two-dimensional pie and bar charts in adjacent map frames. Specifically, we examine the response accuracy and response times of 181 adults who were asked to (1) identify the highest magnitude, (2) estimate a proportion, (3) perform both at the same time, and (4) solve a map-related task using the two chart setups. For each task, charts were shown on backgrounds with increasing visual complexity: a blank, a borders-only, and a choropleth map. Furthermore, we tested whether participants’ performance improved through additional practice with the two chart types. We did not observe any differences in participants’ aggregated response accuracy or response times between the tested three-dimensional and two-dimensional chart types for the (1) highest magnitude task and (2) proportion task. However, participants solved the (3) combination task with two-dimensional pie and bar charts on a blank background more accurately and were faster in fulfilling the (4) spatial task with three-dimensional pie charts. The first difference, however, leveled for participants who gained more practice and who accomplished the combination task on maps with higher visual complexity, whereas the second difference persisted even for more trained subjects.

The Immersive Mental Rotations Test: Evaluating Spatial Ability in Virtual Reality

“…Furthermore, because it has been shown that information processing in "clean" vs cluttered (i.e., simple vs complex) environments may lead to differences in participant performance (e.g., Schnürer et al, 2020), and most, if not all MRT studies have been conducted with a 'clean' background, we generated two unique VEs for the IMRT (Figure 2) to examine the possible effect of background complexity. The first VE surrounds the user with a perceptually limitless, off-white sphere (simple VE)developed with the original paper and pencil version of the MRT in mind.…”

Do Different Map Types Support Map Reading Equally? Comparing Choropleth, Graduated Symbols, and Isoline Maps for Map Use Tasks

“…The results showed that improving visual hierarchy affected viewing behavior and response time. Studies of similar design were conducted with other types of materials, for example 2D and 3D pie charts [12], cartograms [13], maps of spatial accessibility [14], graduated symbols in relation to spatial distance between them [15] or flow maps [16]. All of these provided empirical evidence valuable for formulating the optimal solution for a particular map type, and guidance on how to refine a selected map type.…”

Heat Maps: Perfect Maps for Quick Reading? Comparing Usability of Heat Maps with Different Levels of Generalization

“…Comparing and evaluating design solutions within thematic map types is a common aim in empirical research in cartography [30][31][32][33]. Yet, heat maps have rarely been used as study material in empirical cartographic user-centered research.…”