Database Reference
In-Depth Information
ment environment. Flash is an browser based interactive graphical design tool.
Because of its ease of online deployment, it is particularly suited to communi-
cating messages in a graphical way. In fact, many of the interactive graphics on
the Internet today are Flash-based. However, Flash does not offer the developer
tools that would support structured data exploration. (In fact, it offers only the
most basic of data structures.) Moreover, its timeline-based design environment
is not particularly well-suited to interactive visualization development.
This situation has improved with the release of Actionscript 3 and Flex,
offering a more advanced programming model and a full-fledged user interface
development package. The Flare toolkit [41] implements basic visualization ca-
pabilities within Flash, making it easier to develop interactive information vi-
sualizations, while still retaining the benefits of Flash, such as its relatively
lightweight means of online deployment.
Savvy Communication:
Information visualization tools in this category (mid-
dle right) allow users to create and share complex information visualizations, but
require a base level understanding of computer programming and information
visualization. A concrete example of such a tool is AT&T's GraphViz [33] li-
brary, which allows users to generate static images of graphs but requires some
programming effort to integrate it with existing applications because it uses a
proprietary data format.
Use-cases for GraphViz often involve reporting engines that need to be able
to display networked data of some sort. Many of the features in GraphViz are
geared towards presentation instead of exploration. For example, it is possible
to heavily customize node rendering. Special care has been taken to avoid label
overlapping, as this would make static images completely unreadable. Both of
these issues are less of a problem in interactive systems in which users can use
tooltips to get more information, or zoom into a dense cloud of labels to remove
overlap.
Novice Communication:
Until recently, if novice users wanted to share infor-
mation visualizations with others they would be limited to taking screenshots of
information graphics for sending by e-mail, etc. This mode is often sucient if
the goal is one-way information dissemination. For example, a pie chart may be
included in a presentation, or an advanced information graphic may be printed
in a newspaper. However, this mode of publication fails if users want to collab-
oratively analyze a complex data set.
Recent tools like Many Eyes [97], Sense.us [46], Swivel.com, and Spotfire
Decision Site Posters make this process much easier, allowing easy sharing of
interactive visualizations. As discussed in greater detail in section 4, users of
these systems can share a particular state of a visualization encoded as a URL
and add custom annotations and comments while still having access to the in-
teractive features of the visualization. This makes it possible to quickly switch
between analysis and communication, a necessity for successful collaboration.
Expert Exploration and Analysis:
The bottom left corner of the matrix
contains visualization software that supports deep and broad exploration of the
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