Evaluating event visualization: a usability study of COPLINK spatio-temporal visualizer

Event visualization holds the promise of alleviating information overload in human analysis and numerous tools and techniques have been developed and evaluated. However, previous work does not specifically address either the coordination of event dimensions with the types of tasks involved or the wa...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of human-computer studies 2005, Vol.62 (1), p.127-157
Main Authors: Chung, Wingyan, Chen, Hsinchun, Chaboya, Luis G., O’Toole, Christopher D., Atabakhsh, Homa
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Applied sciences
Computer science
control theory
systems
Computer systems and distributed systems. User interface
Computers
COPLINK
Crime analysis
Evaluation methodology
Event visualization
Exact sciences and technology
Human-computer interaction
Information visualization
Intelligence analysis
Law enforcement
National security
Software
Spatio-Temporal Visualizer
Taxonomy
Usability
User interface
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Summary:Event visualization holds the promise of alleviating information overload in human analysis and numerous tools and techniques have been developed and evaluated. However, previous work does not specifically address either the coordination of event dimensions with the types of tasks involved or the way that visualizing different event dimensions can benefit human analysis. In this paper, we propose a taxonomy of event visualization and present a methodology for evaluating a coordinated event visualization tool called COPLINK Spatio-Temporal Visualizer (STV). The taxonomy encompasses various event dimensions, application domains, visualization metaphors, evaluation methods and performance measures. The evaluation methodology examines different event dimensions and different task types, thus juxtaposing two important elements of evaluating a tool. To achieve both internal and external validity, a laboratory experiment with students and a field study with crime analysis experts were conducted. Findings of our usability study show that STV could support crime analysis involving multiple, coordinated event dimensions as effectively as it could analyze individual, uncoordinated event dimensions. STV was significantly more effective and efficient than Microsoft Excel in performing coordinated tasks and was significantly more efficient in doing uncoordinated tasks related to temporal, spatial and aggregated information. Also, STV had compared favorably with Excel in completing uncoordinated tasks related to temporal and spatial information, respectively. Subjects’ comments showed STV to be intuitive, useful and preferable to existing crime analysis methods.
ISSN:1071-5819
1095-9300
DOI:10.1016/j.ijhcs.2004.08.005