May 30, 2013

EVA Subgroup on Evaluating Vis Techniques
Participants:  
 Aritra Dasgupta,  Anna Michalak, Debbie Huntzinger, Steve Aulenbach, Yaxing Wei, Dan Ricciuto, Forrest Hoffman, Christopher Schwalm, Claudio Silva, Bob Cook, Bill Hargrove

Agenda

1. Introduction and Background (based on January meeting)

Notes from January EVA meeting (http://epad.dataone.org/2013-01-22-EVA-Wkshp)

2. Aritra's paper, currently in review:  An Exploratory Study of Visualization Usage For Climate Data Analysis 
 * exploratory qualitative study for investigating the synergistic capabilities between the visualization community and the climate science community.
 * analyzed usage patterns of visualizations by climate scientists and systematically categorized the common design problems from vis perspective.

Next steps
    Bill:  go broad and include other disciplines within Climate Science
           test and improve the Figure 3 taxonomy using a broader suite of disciplines, include dynamic visualizations
           add an ease / difficulty assessment to the taxonomy (see Figure 10 and Table 4), hints on how to do well. dos/don't dos, recommendations for alternatives
           relationship between taxonomy objects
           frequency count and how well it fits into the taxonomy
           do test/assessment of visualizations in a blind-way (not talk with authors at first)
           
          have experts compare original and improved versions of the same information
    Steve: Visualizations in 2013 DRAFT National Climate Assessment Report, heterogeneous visualization ways to address specific knowledge goals (2013 DRAFT is available at http://ncadac.globalchange.gov) and 2009 Synthesis and Assessment Products (http://www.gcrio.org/library/sap-final-reports.htm)
    
    Anna: IPCC report
        
    Yaxing: take a few visualizations, think about some ideas, make changes, then bring them back to the group to discuss        

3. Discussion of new activity (text below is rough, to generate discussion)

    Evaluation/Review (usability assessment) of visualization techniques for climate community experts

    Goal:      Use of static and exploratory visualizations to facilitate / improve analysis and display of results
                  Evaluate and suggest improvements in visualization approaches used by Terrestrial Biosphere and Climate Modeling communities
    
    Approach:
        identify common visualizations used (collaborate with IPCC WG II Technical Support Unit)
        develop survey targeted for experts 


    Outcome:
    
    Next steps
    
4.  next telecon

Adjourn








Plan for the TVCG Paper   
1.  Taxonomy of design problems developed from 100 to 200 images from TBM community
        have evaluated 106, need another 100 or so images 
            who:  Aritra and Jorge with Claudio and Enrico
            methododolgy: partially described in Sect 2.1 ??? 
                using general design principles to evaluate the images
                expand Sect 2.1 to fully describe the method for applying general vis design principles and how they were used to evaluate the images
                
                Talk with Anna and Forrest to get more images
                A database of images with: intent, problem description, recommendations, communications between us and scientists
                
2.  Need to have 5 or so figures of a diversity of types derived from the Taxonomy of Design Problems (Step #1 above)
            include complexity of the image as a contributor to the diversity

3.  Identify the problems and redo the images with our solutions 
    already have re-done two images (from March Vis paper)

4.  Discuss the problems and the re-done figures 
                    with the EVA group
                    
5.   survey the community to see if those improvements are suitable
                how do we plan to present this in the manuscript? make a plan, which will guide our discussion with scientists and usability survey         

6.  develop guidelines / conclusions 
            state general visualization design principles
            present best practices originating from this paper
            include some info about good images found during the initial steps (Step 1 above)

The InfoVis paper plus reviews will be a good starting point for the TVCG paper.

The schedule that we discussed for completing this paper was basically a couple of months to do the main work and a month to do a careful internal review of the material.