Alebri, Muna; (2024) Understanding the Impact of Embellished Visualisation in Engaging the General Public. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

The emergence of visualisations for the public has caused an abundance of visualisations to be consumed constantly. Visualisation designers often employ embellishments to engage these audiences; these are elements added to the visualisation for functional and aesthetic purposes, such as icons and pictographs. While empirical investigations endorsed embellishments for memorability, limited work explored engagement. This thesis addresses this gap and reports on a series of studies to examine the impact of widely used embellishments on enticing and engaging the public. First, an online user study explored the effect of semantic icons on engagement when distractions surround visualisation to reflect the complexity of visual environments. The results suggest that some semantic icons attracted attention and encouraged writing more insights, while others had no effect. Further explorations of semantic icons with various embellishment types in interviews and user studies suggest that visualisations with multiple embellishments were perceived as more enticing, and isolating these elements revealed that salient semantic icons contributed to this perception. Furthermore, icon labels may be perceived as part of the visualisation convention as publication venues utilize them often and normalize their presence. Despite the topic being an essential factor, certain embellishment types made a less relevant topic more enticing. Further user studies unveiled that semantic icons were valuable to overall perceived engagement, aesthetic appeal, and less interesting and engaging topics. Nevertheless, the data do not provide evidence that semantic icons affect attention and writing insights. These studies demonstrate the complexity of investigating embellishments, particularly when simulating the complexity of visual environments. The work also identifies factors such as topic, saliency of embellishments, venues and their editorial styles that contribute to perceptions about embellishments. The thesis proves semantic icons are valuable for first impressions and prolonged interactions. Finally, some implications and lessons learned are presented for future researchers.

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