IEEE VIS 2024 Content: The Effect of Visual Aids on Reading Numeric Data Tables

The Effect of Visual Aids on Reading Numeric Data Tables

YongFeng Ji - University of Victoria, Victoria, Canada

Charles Perin - University of Victoria, Victoria, Canada

Miguel A Nacenta - University of Victoria, Victoria, Canada

Room: Bayshore II

2024-10-16T16:12:00Z GMT-0600 Change your timezone on the schedule page
2024-10-16T16:12:00Z
Exemplar figure, described by caption below
We study the effects of one visual feature (zebra stripping, top right) and two visual encodings (color shading, bottom left, and data bars, bottom right) on the readability of numeric data tables, compared to a plain table (top left).
Fast forward
Keywords

Data Table, Visual Encoding, Visual Aid, Gaze Analysis, Zebra, Data Bars, Tabular Representations.

Abstract

Data tables are one of the most common ways in which people encounter data. Although mostly built with text and numbers, data tables have a spatial layout and often exhibit visual elements meant to facilitate their reading. Surprisingly, there is an empirical knowledge gap on how people read tables and how different visual aids affect people's reading of tables. In this work, we seek to address this vacuum through a controlled study. We asked participants to repeatedly perform four different tasks with four table representation conditions (plain tables, tables with zebra striping, tables with cell background color encoding cell value, and tables with in-cell bars with lengths encoding cell value). We analyzed completion time, error rate, gaze-tracking data, mouse movement and participant preferences. We found that color and bar encodings help for finding maximum values. For a more complex task (comparison of proportional differences) color and bar helped less than zebra striping. We also characterize typical human behavior for the four tasks. These findings inform the design of tables and research directions for improving presentation of data in tabular form.