Task-based approach recommendations to enhance data visualization in the Kenya national health data warehouse

Abstract

The health sector still lags behind in development of data visualization tools due to the complex nature of health data. Furthermore, due to the volume, velocity and veracity of health data consolidated from various sources, re-presenting them in a way that promotes decision-making while supporting various aspects of human interaction becomes even more challenging. With the plethora of research on improving visualization of integrated health data, focus is shifting from simple charts to novel ways of data re-presentation. Literature also suggests the need for an in-depth exploration on aligning visualizations to tasks, context, and appropriate cognition aspects. We conducted a field study at the Kenya National Health Data Warehouse (KNHDW) in the month of July 2017 to identify the techniques and practices used to visualize data. Two salient tasks performed in the KNHDW were identified in order to explore possibilities of visualizing the data. We then adopted a task-based approach in developing recommendations based on categorical data. These recommendations include (1) use of visualization approaches that promote proper space utilization, and (2) use of leverage points that influence aspects of human cognition process. In addition, the proposed visualizations enable potential users to get a new experience with the data and explore possibilities for visualization. Nevertheless, these recommendations are by no means exhaustive but aim at encouraging best practice in health data visualization in the KNHDW.