Improving how scientists create and use interactive data visuals
"Here Be Sharks!": Enhancing Scientific Communication and Analysis through Authoring Interactivity
Human-Computer Interaction
Summary
Scientists who study marine life found it hard to make clear and useful visuals of their data. The authors worked with these scientists to understand what makes it tricky and what could help. They suggest that tools for creating visuals should fit the way scientists work, like considering their expertise and how they share ideas. They also look into using new kinds of programming and artificial intelligence to make these visuals easier to use and understand. This study helps guide how we build better tools for scientists to communicate and analyze their data.
interactive visualizationauthoring environmentscientific communicationmarine biologydata analysisdomain expertisecollaboration culturepublication traditionsnon-traditional programmingartificial intelligence
Authors
Caroline Berger, Josh Pollock, Dylan Wooton, Arvind Satyanarayan, Clemens Nylandsted Klokmose
Abstract
We report on a case study for designing authoring environments for interactive visualizations to enhance scientific work. We conducted a workshop and prototype review with a group of marine biologists. When it came to visualizing their data, participants identified challenges in conveying their research accurately and completely as well as and analyzing it with ease. Based on our findings, authoring environments should consider the context of scientific work aspects such as domain expertise, collaboration culture, and publication traditions. We propose consideration of non-traditional programming languages and environments for scientific work, discuss ways of facilitating interactive visualizations for scientists, and examine ways of meaningfully integrating AI. The critiques, artifacts, and reactions from the scientists along with our analysis and discussion inform how computational tools should be designed for scientific work.