INFORMATION VISUALIZATION ON SPHERES - Information Visualisation: Techniques, Usability and Evaluation - page 38

into a morphological equivalent on a sphere, but as one user commented:
“while interesting, the sphere doesn't add any additional information that
the user couldn't gain using their traditional techniques.”

Strengths and limitations of spheres

As shown by other implementations and ours, spheres can be a promising
and compelling means by which to organize a visualization. However, our
contribution shows that the decision of whether to use a sphere as the
primary organizing principle needs to consider the potential benefits and
drawbacks of using spheres.

Strengths

Spheres and Mental Models - Inverse and backside : Correlation
data worked particularly well with spheres as there was a correspondence
to user mental models. Mental constructs such as “inverse correlation”
mapped well with the “flip side” of the sphere.
Topological Wraparound : The sphere offers a surface without a
boundary. This may work well with some types of models, such as force-
layouts with some subset of graph types.
Intuitive 3D Navigation : Scene navigation can be made intuitive
using the appropriate paradigm (a virtual sphere worked well), but it also
needed to be augmented with a “flip” button. Zooming, while provided,
only hindered usability. Navigation could have been made easier by using
the select event to also rotate the selected item to the centre.
Circular Aesthetics : The sphere has the potential to be viscerally
compelling, providing an enticing initial response; however, the
visualization must provide more substantive value to engage potential
users beyond the initial response.
Extensible : User feedback provided many suggestions to enhance the
technique for different use cases, including the addition of contour lines,
additional attributes per marker, real-time updates with real-time
movement of data-markers, selection, and additional workflow. None of
these extensions are specific to spheres or limited by the use of a sphere.

Limitations

Backside : The use of the sphere must have a strategy for dealing with
data on the backside.
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An opaque sphere requires means to navigate easily, which is
insufficient if the user requires a simultaneous view across the full
dataset.