30 December 2006

✏️Colin Ware - Collected Quotes

"Why should we be interested in visualization? Because the human visual system is a pattern seeker of enormous power and subtlety. The eye and the visual cortex of the brain form a massively parallel processor that provides the highest-bandwidth channel into human cognitive centers. At higher levels of processing, perception and cognition are closely interrelated, which is the reason why the words 'understanding' and 'seeing' are synonymous." (Colin Ware, 2000)

"A good visualization is not just a static picture or a 3D virtual environment that we can walk through and inspect like a museum full of statues. A good visualization is something that allows us to drill down and find more data about anything that seems important." (Colin Ware, "Information Visualization: Perception for Design" 2nd Ed., 2004)

"Chernoff faces have not generally been adopted in practical visualization applications. The main reason for this may be the idiosyncratic nature of faces. When data is mapped to faces, many kinds of perceptual interactions can occur. Sometimes the combination of variables will result in a particular stereotypical face, perhaps a happy face or a sad face, and this will be identified more readily. In addition, there are undoubtedly great differences in our sensitivity to the different features. We may be more sensitive to the curvature of the mouth than to the height of the eyebrows, for example. This means that the perceptual space of Chernoff faces is likely to be extremely nonlinear. In addition, there are almost certainly many uncharted interactions between facial features, and these are likely to vary from one viewer to another." (Colin Ware, "Information Visualization: Perception for Design" 2nd Ed., 2004)

"Diagrams are always hybrids of the conventional and the perceptual. Diagrams contain conventional elements, such as abstract labeling codes, that are difficult to learn but formally powerful. They also contain information that is coded according to perceptual rules, such as Gestalt principles. Arbitrary mappings may be useful, as in the case of mathematical notation, but a good diagram takes advantage of basic perceptual mechanisms that have evolved to perceive structure in the environment." (Colin Ware, "Information Visualization: Perception for Design" 2nd Ed., 2004)

"It is useful to think of color as an attribute of an object rather than as its primary characteristic. It is excellent for labeling and categorization, but poor for displaying shape, detail, or space." (Colin Ware, "Information Visualization: Perception for Design" 2nd Ed., 2004)

"Interactive visualization is a process made up of a number of interlocking feedback loops that fall into three broad classes. At the lowest level is the data manipulation loop, through which objects are selected and moved using the basic skills of eye–hand coordination. Delays of even a fraction of a second in this interaction cycle can seriously disrupt the performance of higher-level tasks. At an intermediate level is an exploration and navigation loop, through which an analyst finds his or her way in a large visual data space." (Colin Ware, "Information Visualization: Perception for Design" 2nd Ed., 2004)

"The great advantage of the treemap over conventional tree views is that the amount of information on each branch of the tree can be easily visualized. Because the method is space-filling, it can show quite large trees containing thousands of branches. The disadvantage is that the hierarchical structure is not as clear as it is in a more conventional tree drawing, which is a specialized form of node–link diagram." (Colin Ware, "Information Visualization: Perception for Design" 2nd Ed., 2004)

"The problem with the view that metadata and primary data are somehow essentially different is that all data is interpreted to some extent - there is no such thing as raw data. Every data gathering instrument embodies some particular interpretation in the way it is built. Also, from the practical viewpoint of the visualization designer, the problems of representation are the same for metadata as for primary data. In both cases, there are entities, relationships, and their attributes to be represented, although some are more abstract than others." (Colin Ware, "Information Visualization: Perception for Design" 2nd Ed., 2004)

"[...] when data is presented in certain ways, the patterns can be readily perceived. If we can understand how perception works, our knowledge can be translated into rules for displaying information. Following perception‐based rules, we can present our data in such a way that the important and informative patterns stand out. If we disobey the rules, our data will be incomprehensible or misleading." (Colin Ware, "Information Visualization: Perception for Design" 2nd Ed., 2004)

"One reason design is difficult is that the designer already has the knowledge expressed in the design, has seen it develop from inception, and therefore cannot see it with fresh eyes. The solution is to be analytic and this is where this book is intended to add value. Effective design should start with a visual task analysis, determine the set of visual queries to be supported by a design, and then use color, form, and space to efficiently serve those queries." (Colin Ware, "Visual Thinking for Design", 2008)

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