My
thesis research is on the use of visual metaphors as a general framework
for understanding how visual structure affects visualization use.
Infovis theory has mostly focused on the visual properties of
objects, which has made it possible to apply work in perception to visualization design. My work similarly attempts to
understand the conceptual structure of visualization, making it possible
to apply knowledge from human cognition. Visual
metaphors are a useful foundation, since conceptual metaphors are
well-studied and can be easily applied to a variety of structural
issues.
Caroline Ziemkiewicz and Robert Kosara.
"Preconceptions and Individual Differences in Understanding Visual
Metaphors."
Computer Graphics Forum. To Appear.
Caroline Ziemkiewicz and Robert Kosara. “The Shaping of
Information by Visual Metaphors.”
I am also interested more
generally in the cognitive aspects of visualization use. For
example, how do different presentations of maps lead to different
conceptions of space? What does cognitive science imply for
interaction design? And how can we reconcile the visualization
community's ideas about insight with insight's definition in cognitive
science?
Remco Chang, Caroline
Ziemkiewicz, Tera Green, and William Ribarsky. “Defining Insight for
Visual Analytics.”
IEEE Computer Graphics and
Applications Viewpoints. To Appear.
Forked Parallel Sets
Blob
Networks
Apart from my theory and
experimental work, I try to bring a structural perspective to
visualization design. Here are some of the smaller design projects
I've worked on.
Mixed categorical and continous data to analyze dimensional
relationships
Categorical data as a network