Beyond Usability: Evaluation Aspects of Visual Analytic Environments

A new field of research, visual analytics, has been introduced. This has been defined as "the science of analytical reasoning facilitated by interactive visual interfaces" (Thomas and Cook, 2005). Visual analytic environments, therefore, support analytical reasoning using visual representations and interactions, with data representations and transformation capabilities, to support production, presentation, and dissemination. As researchers begin to develop visual analytic environments, it is advantageous to develop metrics and methodologies to help researchers measure the progress of their work and understand the impact their work has on the users who work in such environments. This paper presents five areas or aspects of visual analytic environments that should be considered as metrics and methodologies for evaluation are developed. Evaluation aspects need to include usability, but it is necessary to go beyond basic usability. The areas of situation awareness, collaboration, interaction, creativity, and utility are proposed as the five evaluation areas for initial consideration. The steps that need to be undertaken to develop systematic evaluation methodologies and metrics for visual analytic environments are outlined