User:Steven Gomez/Project:Expression Representation Variability.11

How do people with different background/training communicate ideas?

Related

"Visual Thinking in Action: Visualizations As Used On Whiteboards", Walny et al., InfoVis 2011

Methods

First step, get slides from different folks, domains. Some basic background info ("what is the topic?", "how general is the audience? size?", "where presented?"). Ask GSBB, see how many we get.

Codings

We need to group people based on their fields. Proposed: Bio-medical sciences, natural sciences, formal sciences (CS, math, engineering), humanities, visual art, social sciences

Slideshows

Visual Elements

• infovis constructs for numerical data - charts
• infovis constructs for relations - trees, other graphs
• flowcharts - diagram of causality
• timelines (not flowchart)
• other visual mapping? affect? other metaphors?

Considering...

• diagram overlaid on other images?
• color? (background, highlighting)

Textual Elements

Equations

• numeric equations
• qualitative equations (using abstract operators between words to convey a relationship)

Captions that restate the image data

• image captions that restate something that could be interpreted in the image
• chart captions (e.g., the mathematical description of the chart)

Captions that describe the meaning or value of an image, or otherwise augment it

• image captions
• chart captions

Labels

• labels on infovis constructs or flowcharts

Other

• ellipses
• word lists
• words in sentences or paragraphs

Temporal Elements

• building on the previous slide (e.g., content copied over, but with new info or emphasis added)
• copying or restating any earlier slide (e.g., revisiting a roadmap for the presentation)

Abstract Elements

• simile
• metaphor

Live Study

What the Whiteboard Study Did

• charts
• trees
• graphs
• flow-charts
• dense versus sparse
• separation versus grouping
• ellipses
• word lists
• words in spatial organizations
• simple diagrammatic constructs
• words in visual constructions
• mixed words and diagrams
• diagrams with labels
• pure diagrams
• focus and context
• words in sentences or paragraphs

Concepts to explain, teach

Spatial Concepts

• Assembly instructions, or how simple mechanical devices work
  • Doorknob
  • Ballpoint pen (e.g., how ink rubs on on the papers and the ball is "re-inked" by gravity)
• Maps
  • Drawing a map from Brown CIT down to Kennedy Plaza from memory -- what do subjects include?

Non-spatial (or, not observable) Concepts

• Chemical processes
  • Acid + Base = Water + Salt
  • Rust/Oxidation

• Astronomical processes
  • Greenhouse gas build up
  • Albedo -- light absorption/reflection
  • How a cell phone calls another cell phone

• Computational processes
  • Explaining concurrency, race conditions, deadlocks
  • Explaining inductive proofs to non-math people
  • Explaining the 'map' function (i.e., for all elements, or numbers, in a set apply some function to get a new set)
  • Describe a traffic light "state machine" based on a set of written observations
    • See how they figure out the rules, then how they explain it to someone else