Look Here! Guiding Attention in Complex Visualizations

Overview

Abstract

Drawing the user's attention to important items in an image, a complex visualization, or a cluttered graphical user interface is a non-trivial challenge. In the context of visualization, our goal is to effectively attract the user's attention to relevant items in large and complex scenes, while keeping noticeable modifications of the image to a minimum. In this talk, I will give an overview of common highlighting methods and present results from my research on attention guidance in complex, dynamic visualizations.

Brief Biography

Manuela Waldner is an assistant professor at the research unit of computer graphics of the Institute of Visual Computing & Human-Centered Technology at TU Wien, Austria. She has a PhD in computer science (2011) from Graz University of Technology and a master’s (2006) and bachelor’s (2004) degree in Media Technology and Design and Digital Media, respectively, from the Upper Austria University of Applied Sciences. Her main research interests cover interactive data analysis and visualization with the primary goal to make complex data and models better understandable. She has co-authored papers at journals and venues like IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics or ACM Human Factors in Computing Systems, of which some have been nominated or awarded best paper awards. In 2014, she received a Hertha Firnberg fellowship for highly qualified female scientists bythe Austrian Science Fund (FWF).