Reading Numeric Data Tables: Viewer Behavior and the Effect of Visual Aids
Date
2023-12-21
Authors
Ji, YongFeng
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Abstract
Data tables are one of the most common ways in which people encounter data. Although mostly built with text and numbers, data table representations have strong spatial components, and often exhibit visual elements meant to facilitate their reading. there is an
empirical knowledge gap on how people read and use tables and how different visual aids
affect people’s ability to use them. In this work, I seek to address this gap through a series
of empirical studies. I asked participants to repeatedly perform five different tasks with tables in four conditions where the table representations consisted of Plain tables, tables with
Zebra striping, with cell background color encoding the value, and with background bar
length in a cell encoding its value. I analyzed the gathered data in multiple ways to characterize human behavior when accessing tables and to assess the benefits of the different visual aids.
Description
Keywords
Visualization, Data Table, Table, Human–computer interaction