Wiggle Room: Visualizing Uncertainty Through Animation in Graphs

Submitted by Velitchko Filipov on

Can uncertainty be felt... through a wiggle?
What if node wiggliness could help us see uncertainty more intuitively in networks?
 

Our paper "Wiggle! Wiggle! Wiggle! Visualizing uncertainty in node attributes in straight-line node-link diagrams using animated wiggliness" is out and we explore animation as a powerful (yet underused) channel for uncertainty visualization in multivariate graphs.

Authors: Henry Ehlers, Daniel Pahr, Sara di Bartolomeo, Velitchko Filipov, Hsiang-Yun Wu, Renata G. Raidou


Highlights:

  • Proposal of a novel approach to uncertainty visualization of node attributes in networks: wiggliness.
  • Literature survey and categorization of uncertainty visualization approaches.
  • Online study on the effect of uncertainty encoding on user performance and experience in mixed methods analysis.
  • This study opens the door to using animated motion in graphs not just as an aesthetic effect, but as a meaningful, measurable communication tool. A fascinating leap in uncertainty visualization!