Interactive visualization literacy: The state-of-the-art

Abstract

With the advent of novel visualization techniques to convey complex information, data visualization literacy is growing in importance. Two facets of literacy are user understanding and the discovery of visual patterns with the help of graphical representations. The research literature on visualization literacy provides useful guidance and important opportunities for further studies in this field. This survey examines and classifies prior research on visualization literacy that analyzes how well users understand novel data representations. To our knowledge, this is the first comprehensive survey paper with a focus on interactive visualization literacy. We categorize existing relevant research into unique subject groups that facilitate and inform comparisons of related literature and provide an overview of the same. Additionally, the survey/classification also provides an overview of the various evaluation techniques used in this field of research due to their challenging nature. Our novel classification enables researchers to find both mature and unexplored directions that may lead to future work. This survey serves as a valuable resource for both beginners and experienced researchers interested in the topic of visualization literacy.

Towards Visual Literacy in School : Interactions between Students and Interactive Visualizations in Social Science Classrooms

“…Following the rise of visualizations used in educational practice, correspondingly there is, as mentioned earlier, a shift toward VL (Serafini, 2017). As novel visualization techniques have become more frequently used, the concepts of (data) visualization literacy, and lately even more specified, interactive visualization literacy have emerged as a topic of research (Firat et al, 2022). Described by Börner (2019), these kinds of literacy skills are essential.…”

“…Suggested by Chevalier et al (2018), the aspect of literacy that adds the principles and skills for creating visualizations should also be included. However, as expressed by Firat et al (2022) in their literature review, visualization literacy still is considered a small sub-field. So, to encompass a broader take, this thesis embraces the wider concept of VL.…”

“…Andre & Lavicza, 2019;Alper et al, 2017;Fuchs et al, 2019;Koedinger et al, 2001;Krekhov et al, 2019;Saddiqa et al, 2019;. To begin the account of relevant research concerning this aspect, a comprehensive survey paper focusing on interactive visualization literacy studies by Firat et al (2022) is helpful. The research overview shows that most classroom-based research studies use pre-and post-experiment tests, where a visual designs' effectiveness and VL tests are examined.…”

“…The conclusions reported that students performed moderately well when asked to interpret graphs, while generating their own visualizations was much harder. However, according to conclusions by Firat et al (2022), students' constructions of visualizations are motivated by experimenting with different methods to communicate and promote engagement. Not surprisingly, it is also emphasized that students can understand many visualizations when they have clear features guiding them, but that too much information is challenging.…”

Design and Comparative Evaluation of Visualization Onboarding Methods

“…So far, there has been little discussion about onboarding concepts for visualization techniques and VA tools [21].…”