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the implementation of effective visual information systems. Research in this area
focuses on user-centered analysis and modeling (Requirement Engineering), the
development of principles, methods and tools for design of perception-driven,
multimodal interaction techniques for visualization and exploration of large in-
formation spaces, as well as usability evaluation of such systems [21,12]. On the
technical side, research in this area is influenced by two main factors: (1.) The
availability of improved display resources (hardware), and (2.) Development of
novel interaction algorithms incorporating machine recognition of the actual user
intent and appropriate adaptation of main display parameters such as the level
of detail, data selection and aggregation, etc. by which the data is presented[44].
Important problems addressed in this area include the research of perceptual,
cognitive and graphical principles which in combination lead to improved visual
communication of data and analysis results; The development of perception-
theory-based solutions for the graphical representation of static and dynamic
structures; And development of visual representation of information at several
levels of abstraction, and optimization of existing focus-and-context techniques.
3.5 Human-Computer Interaction
Human-computer interaction is the research area that studies the interaction
between people and computers. It involves the design, implementation and eval-
uation of interactive systems in the context of the user's task and work [12].
Like visual analytics itself, human-computer interaction is a multi-disciplinary
research area that draws on many other disciplines: computer science, system
design, and behavioral science are some of them. The basic underlying research
goal is to improve the interaction between users and computers: how to make
computers more receptive to the users' intentions and needs. Thus, the research
areas discussed in the previous section about perception and cognition are also
much related to human-computer interaction [21].
As pointed out in the introduction, visual analytics aims to combine and
integrate the strengths of computers and humans into an interactive process to
extract knowledge from data. To effectively switch back and forth between tasks
for the computer and tasks for the human it is crucial to develop an effective
user interface that minimizes the barrier between the human's cognitive model
of what they want to accomplish and the computer's understanding of the hu-
man's task. The design of user interfaces focuses on human factors of interactive
software, methods to develop and assess interfaces, interaction styles, and design
considerations such as effective messages and appropriate color choice [37].
3.6
Infrastructure and Evaluation
The above described research disciplines require cross-discipline support regard-
ing the evaluation of the found solutions, and need certain infrastructure and
standardization grounding to build on effectively. In the field of information vi-
sualization, standardization and evaluation came into the focus of research only
recently. It has been realized that a general understanding of the taxonomies
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