A Process-Oriented Approach to Analyze Analysts' Use of Visualizations: Revealing Insights into the What, When, and How

Type
conference contribution
Date Issued
2025
Author(s)
;
;
Vrotsou, Katerina
;
Abstract
Despite Visual Analytics (VA) tools being essential for supporting data analysis, evaluating their use in real-world analytical
processes remains challenging. Traditional evaluation methods often overlook the nuanced and evolving nature of analysis
processes and are not always suitable for investigating scenarios in which analysts combine multiple tools and visualization
types. In this paper, we propose a flexible analysis approach for studying analysts’ use of visualizations within and across
VA tools. Our qualitative method allows researchers to extract user behavior and cognitive steps from screen recordings and
think-aloud data and generate event sequences that capture analytic processes. This enables the analysis of usage patterns from
multiple perspectives and levels of granularity and allows for the evaluation of effectiveness measures, such as efficiency and
accuracy. We demonstrate our approach in the domain of process mining, where our findings provide insights into the use of
existing visualizations, and we reflect on lessons learned from this application.
Funding(s)
This work was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation as part of the ProMiSE project under Grant No.: 200021\_197032
The work was supported, in part, by the Swedish Research Council under Grant No.: 2020-05000
Language
English (United States)
Keywords
Empirical studies
Evaluation
Visualization design and evaluation methods
Process Mining
Visual Analytics
Event Title
EuroVis 2025
URL
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