Faglig /

Master

SEE Project Plan/Schedule

Abstract

  • short form of introduction
    • Information is increasingly integrated
    • Visual representations well suited information carrier (for communication)
    • Need to address this by integrating several fields
    • Cartography = spatial, conceptual modelling = non-spatial
      • Each is good at their field
      • Project aims at integrating knowledge from these two
    • Method
      • case study in health care domain
      • design integrated visual representations
      • investigate performance of these
      • Propose general applicable guidelines and direction for further efforts (MERGE THIS WITH BELOW)
  • PROVIDE THE RESULTS!
    • Participants cognitive metaphor of information is highly important
      • Integrated visual representations should satisfy this
    • Important to assess separately the spatial and non-spatial information needs
      • Societal needs [moody]
    • Societal acceptance can be cumbersome! Needs to be properly addressed as integrated information is radical and unfamiliar in enterprise environments.

PostGIS proof-of-concept (appendix)

  • Motivation
    • test feasibility of temporal distance one-to-all in indoors environment
    • Goal: get distance from an arbitrary point (i.e. users location) to arbitrary points.
      • Need to "snap" arbitrary points to a pre-defined distance graph (i.e. the nearest node)
      • Density of nodes affects accuracy
    • Approach, weighted distance graph
    • Stationary nodes (i.e. one/two for each room)
    • Rooms must be "closed"
      • Polygons
    • Floors
      • Not tested, approach: add attribute to every spatial concept (i.e. rooms/nodes/positions)
    • Snapping to nodes
      • Euclidean distance
      • Can snap to wrong nodes if rooms have obscure shapes (i.e. wobbly, thin and long)
      • Needs refining
  • Proved to be feasible with some efforts needed

Introduction

Motivation for investigation

  • Information increasingly comprising spatial attributes [mac]
  • Availability of information increase
    • Distribution easy (i.e. internet)
  • Generation of spatial/non-spatial=integrated information easier
  • Context-aware/user specific/user adaptable systems increasingly required
  • Increased interest in indoor enterprise environments for spatial information [costtCite]

Master thesis project /goals (i.e. what is addressed)

  • Visual communication very powerful (cite?)
  • Conceptual modelling powerful for non-spatial information
    • "Long" tradition
    • Solid understanding of quality (SEQUAL)
  • Cartography powerful for spatial information
    • Very long tradition
      • New technology urge need for adaptation of techniques (most valid still though)
    • Fair understanding of design guidelines
      • Can still address technological advances (dynamic, interactive maps)
  • Information not separated anymore
    • Integrated information is the new information (i.e. "everything" is spatial)
    • Need to meet this evolution
    • Develop techniques which address visual representation of integrated information with (preferably) equal emphasis and communication of both spatial and non-spatial
  • Project will:
    • Survey and present well-known and accepted techniques for (primarily) visual representation from conceptual modelling and cartography
    • Investigate a case study in the health care domain
    • Develop a scenario suitable for visual representation of integrated information
    • Develop different visual representations, discuss potential lacks and benefits, and potential variants
    • Investigate the visual representations performance in an illustrative empirical experiment.
    • Discuss results of and experience from the experiments
    • Generalize experience from project into proposed guidelines for integrated visual representations.
    • Discuss project and suggest direction of further work

Finished...

  1. Background
    1. Cartography (brief overview with lots of ref's)
    2. Conceptual Modelling (brief overview with lots of ref's)
    3. Background SEQUAL
    4. MAPQUAL
    5. MAPQUAL vs. SEQUAL
    6. Hospital case
      1. COSTT (transparency, awareness, CSCW)
      2. Hypothesis (context aware information -> better personal coordination -> more effective staff trajectory -> more effective patient trajectory)
  2. Investigations
    1. Method
      1. Paper-prototypes
      2. Different types visualizations
      3. Testing methodology
    2. Scenario; anaesthetist work day
      1. Snapshots; 07:58, 11:00, 12:15
    3. Visualizations
      1. Spatial GANTT
  • traditional
  • users familiarity
  • align according to schedule (i.e. temporal dimension)
    • Well suited for information that have an important, and equal temporal dimension
  • Spatial extension
    • Removes the traditional GANTT dimension of tasks on y-axis
    • Adds nearness on y-axis
    • Nearness computed continuously according to users spatial position
    • Could easily represent other spatial properties; euclidean distance, floors etc
      1. Spatial circle layout
  • Untraditional
  • Motivated by:
    • Emphasis of spatial properties of conceptual models
    • Effective communication of conceptual information _AND_ spatial information
    • Avoid to strict guidance by spatial properties
    • Retain possibilities of high empirical quality
  • Main principle:
    • One central perspective (i.e. the user)
    • Circles with center in central perspective illustrates spatial nearness by length from center (i.e. radius)
  • Hypothesis
    • Communication of temporal properties (i.e. schedule) is ineffective
    • Is best suited towards traditional conceptual models with low degree of temporal properties (i.e. alignment etc)
      • could be communicated by i.e. colour/size etc also... See variants..
  • Variants
    • For isometric? spatial information; spatial nearness could be illustrated among all concepts and not from only one central perspective(i.e. depict that A<->B=5 A<->C=4 _and_ C<->B=6)
      • Limits freedom of positioning of concepts - believed to reduce the possibilities of enhancing empirical quality
    • Emphasis of temporal properties
      • Use size/colour(/value) to indicate temporal nearness (i.e. near in time)
    • Segmented spatial and temporal circles
      • Motivation: include benefits of scheduling

Results from experiment

  • Present how the experiment was undertaken
    • 2 participants - hospital workers. One anaesthetist, one GP ("in the role of anaesthetist")
    • Performed at St.Olavs hospital, dates: XX.XX.XXXX and YY.YY.YYYY
  • Present results through graphs
    • Comprehensibility
    • Knowledge gain
    • Technology acceptance
  • Discuss overall results
    • Discuss participants acceptance and performance in relation to aggregated results
    • Comprehensibility
      • Gantt better
    • Knowledge gain
      • Circles better than Gantt due to decision making unrelates (partly) to temporal dimension
    • Technology acceptance
      • Gantt preferred over circles - in general - user's familiarity

Discuss the experiment's contribution to a revised quality framework

  • Information
    • General nature of the scenario information, spatial believed to be important, temporal believed to be important, user's focused highly on temporal attribs - less on spatial. High abstraction level
    • Temporal attribs
      • Task strong relation to temporal
      • Temporal perceived sequential - gantt performed better - TAM
    • Spatial attribs
      • Abs location not working for visual represent. in environment
      • Deduced spatial info beneficiary
      • Spatial "new" information for users
  • Visual representation
    • MQ vs SQ essentially on lang.comprehens. and map.empirical - will not differentiate strict - as investigation is to narrow (i.e. "this is only an experience documented")
    • User's cognitive perception of information's attributes IMPORTANT!
      • Social actors perception of quality depends largely on this!
    • Sequential perception of temporal data - "better" with sequential represent.
      • Process/flow-models related
      • Graph theory may actually work for integrated information as well!
    • Visual variables
      • Not common in conc.modeling (however is common in InfoViz...)
      • Proved successful (believed to be at least)
    • Layout freedom
      • Strict positioning seems to be better - at least better TAM (depends on data)
      • Alignment on attribs the user finds most important to compare, useful

Concluding remarks

  • Project summary
    • Surveyed and presented methodologies for visual representation in cartography and conceptual modelling
    • Quality guidelines
      • Cartography: Graphic design, MAPQUAL
      • Conceptual Modelling: SEQUAL
    • Developed visual representation of integrated information
    • Case study; hospital, anaesthetist work day
      • Experiment to investigate properties of visual representations

Experience

  • Participants cognitive metaphor of (perceived) important information should match the visualization metaphor
  • Spatial attributes of information is new and unfamiliar
    • Can introduce problems! Societal acceptance/needs [moody]
    • Not necessarily obvious that spatial extension is accepted and useful for participants.
  • Spatial Gantt layout most promising for case study
    • Should be revised to emphasize more/different on spatial attribs
  • Spatial Circle layout suitable for non-sequential information
    • Could aid in traditional conceptual modelling with spatial attribs.
  • Variants of Spatial Circle promising - suggested for further work
  • Tool support should be developed and investigated
    • Interactivity - changing and viewing information through the visual representation
    • Filtering essential!
      • Common technique in both cartog. + conc.model.
    • Zooming, panning, (semi-)automatic generalization needs to be investigated
      • Cartography can contribute a lot!
  • Integrating visual representation techniques from cartogr. and conc.model. is useful
    • Their different approaches useful for visual representation of integrated information
  • Case study and collaboration with domain experts very useful
    • Design of experiment could be enhanced
      • More comprehensive/detailed on comprehens. + knowl.gain.
      • Strict separation of investigation of spatial vs. non-spatial
    • Further work should concentrate on more complex scenarios
      • Elicit further participants information need - aim at spatial intensive scenarios
    • Usefulness in other domains should be investigated
      • Enterprises, freight companies, ship-industry, consumer user market (tourist, everyday usage etc)



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