On the
Prospects for a Science of Visualization
Ronald A Rensink, University
of British Columbia
In
W. Huang (Ed.), Handbook
of Human Centric Visualization: Theories, Methodologies, and Case Studies. New York:
Springer. pp.
147-175 [pdf] [web]
This paper explores the
extent to which a scientific framework for visualization might be possible. It
presents several potential parts of a framework, illustrated by application to
the visualization of correlation in scatterplots. The first is an extended-vision
thesis, which posits that a viewer and visualization system can be usefully
considered as a single system that perceives structure in a dataset, much like
"basic" vision perceives structure in the world. This
characterization is then used to suggest approaches to evaluation that take
advantage of techniques used in vision science. Next, an optimal-reduction thesis is presented,
which posits that an optimal visualization enables the given task to be reduced
to the most suitable operations in the extended system. A systematic comparison
of alternative designs is then proposed, guided by what is known about
perceptual mechanisms. It is shown that these elements can be extended in
various ways--some even overlapping with parts of vision science. As such, a
science of some kind appears possible for at least some parts of visualization.
It would remain distinct from design practice, but could nevertheless assist
with the design of visualizations that better engage human perception and
cognition.