insights of Infovis

The first one is by Ji Soo Yi, talking about how people gain insights from infovis.

(Yi, Kang et al. 2008) Understanding and Characterizing Insights: How do people gain insights using information visualization? (link from ACM portal)

This paper is a serial papers from Yi, which bring lots of insights into the theoretical fundatation of InfoVis at Infovis Conference, BELIV, and his dissertation. 

In this paper, authors revealed four procedures through which people gain insights from infovis systems or tools by reviewing pervious studies on benefits gained from infovis. The four procedures include:

1. Provide overview
   
2. Adjust
3. Detect pattern
4. Match mental mode

Before going to the detailed descriptions of the four procedures, authors argued why they endeavour to find "how" to gain insights, instead of "what" is a insight, because the definition of "insights" are complex, and a uniformed, wildly accepted definition of insights is still lack. Knowing how people gain insights could help to define what insights are.

Authors also argued that the "insights" are not only the "end results," but the sources or stimuli of other insights, and often a by-product of exploration without an initial destination. This arguments lead me to think about the mantra at Thomas and Cook's Illuminating the Path, "detect expected, and discovery unexpected." Are insights expected or unexpected? What are the differences between "insights" and "discoveris"?

Authors use data/frame theory of sense making as a critical step for understanding insight gaining, because "we found that understanding sense making is critical." I do hope to hear more about the relationship between the two concepts, which may lay down solid foundation of InfoVis and Visual Analytics.

In the final conclusion, authors raised an interesting question, "Is there something unique about visualization in the way  it produces insight that is different from other ways of producing insights?" For this question, I would like to think if any of the four processes discussed in above can have this unique feature. Is visualization good at helping match mental model of human beings with the data?