Triggers and Barriers to Insight Generation in Personal Visualizations

Poorna Talkad Sukumar, Anind Dey, Gloria Mark, Ronald Metoyer, Aaron Striegel

Keywords: Personal visualizations, qualitative study, mixed-methods study, self-tracking, insight-based evaluation

Abstract: We report on the findings from a mixed-methods user study that explores some of the less-studied challenges in designing personal visualizations. We implemented an interface presenting visualizations of the personal data gathered as part of a prior study and conducted a think-aloud study (N=15) of participants' exploration of their respective data on the interface. We analyzed participant verbal reports and interactions to (i) corroborate the types of insights they gained with the insight types identified in the literature, (ii) identify contextual information recalled by the participants to interpret their data, and (iii) identify interface design choices that potentially hinder insight discovery. Our findings complement prior work and we present design directions for visualizations of personal data, including guidelines for providing baselines for comparison, providing higher explorability for more data-savvy users, and minimizing the need for reading even in more exploratory interfaces.