Alebri, Muna;
Costanza, Enrico;
Panagiotidou, Georgia;
Brumby, Duncan P;
Althani, Fatima;
Bovo, Riccardo;
(2024)
Visualisations with semantic icons: Assessing engagement with distracting elements.
International Journal of Human-Computer Studies
, 191
, Article 103343. 10.1016/j.ijhcs.2024.103343.
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Abstract
As visualisations reach a broad range of audiences, designing visualisations that attract and engage becomes more critical. Prior work suggests that semantic icons entice and immerse the reader; however, little is known about their impact with informational tasks and when the viewer's attention is divided because of a distracting element. To address this gap, we first explored a variety of semantic icons with various visualisation attributes. The findings of this exploration shaped the design of our primary comparative online user studies, where participants saw a target visualisation with a distracting visualisation on a web page and were asked to extract insights. Their engagement was measured through three dependent variables: (1) visual attention, (2) effort to write insights, and (3) self-reported engagement. In Study 1, we discovered that visualisations with semantic icons were consistently perceived to be more engaging than the plain version. However, we found no differences in visual attention and effort between the two versions. Thus, we ran Study 2 using visualisations with more salient semantic icons to achieve maximum contrast. The results were consistent with our first Study. Furthermore, we found that semantic icons elevated engagement with visualisations depicting less interesting and engaging topics from the participant's perspective. We extended prior work by demonstrating the semantic value after performing an informational task (extracting insights) and reflecting on the visualisation, besides its value to the first impression. Our findings may be helpful to visualisation designers and storytellers keen on designing engaging visualisations with limited resources. We also contribute reflections on engagement measurements with visualisations and provide future directions.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Visualisations with semantic icons: Assessing engagement with distracting elements |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.ijhcs.2024.103343 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2024.103343 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third-party material in this article are included in the Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
| Keywords: | Science & Technology, Social Sciences, Technology, Computer Science, Cybernetics, Ergonomics, Psychology, Multidisciplinary, Computer Science, Engineering, Psychology, Embellished visualisations, Visualisations for the public, Engagement, INFORMATION VISUALIZATION |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > UCL Interaction Centre UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Computer Science |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10198638 |
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