Understanding and characterizing insights: how do people gain insights using information visualization?

Even though "providing insight" has been considered one of the main purposes of information visualization (InfoVis), we feel that insight is still a not-well-understood concept in this context. Inspired by research in sensemaking, we realized the importance of the procedural aspects in understanding insight. Thus, rather than asking "What is insight?" we instead focus on "How do people gain insights?" In an effort to better understand and characterize insight, we reviewed previous literature in InfoVis, seeking other researchers' comments and views on this concept. We found that: 1) Insights are often regarded as end results of using InfoVis and the procedures to gain insight have been largely veiled; 2) Four largely distinctive processes of gaining insight (Provide Overview, Adjust, Detect Pattern, and Match Mental Model) have been discussed in the InfoVis literature; and 3) These different processes provide some hints to understand the procedures i...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2008
• Where: CHI
• Authors: Ji Soo Yi, Youn ah Kang, John T. Stasko, Julie A. Jacko
• Keywords: CHI 2008, Human Computer Interaction, Interfaces And Presentation, People Gain Insights, Performance Keywords Insight