Abstract:
We report on results of a series of user studies on the perception of four
visual variables that are commonly used in the literature to depict
uncertainty. To the best of our knowledge, we provide the first formal
evaluation of the use of these variables to facilitate an easier reading of
uncertainty in visualizations that rely on line graphical primitives. In
addition to blur, dashing and grayscale, we investigate the use of
'sketchiness' as a visual variable because it conveys visual impreciseness
that may be associated with data quality. Inspired by work in
non-photorealistic rendering and by the features of hand-drawn lines, we
generate line trajectories that resemble hand-drawn strokes of various levels
of proficiency-ranging from child to adult strokes-where the amount of
perturbations in the line corresponds to the level of uncertainty in the
data. Our results show that sketchiness is a viable alternative for the
visualization of uncertainty in lines and is as intuitive as blur; although
people subjectively prefer dashing style over blur, grayscale and
sketchiness. We discuss advantages and limitations of each technique and
conclude with design considerations on how to deploy these visual variables
to effectively depict various levels of uncertainty for line marks.