A systematic method for surveying data visualizations and a resulting genomic epidemiology visualization typology: GEViT

Abstract

Motivation: Data visualization is an important tool for exploring and communicating findings from genomic and healthcare datasets. Yet, without a systematic way of organizing and describing the design space of data visualizations, researchers may not be aware of the breadth of possible visualization design choices or how to distinguish between good and bad options. Results: We have developed a method that systematically surveys data visualizations using the analysis of both text and images. Our method supports the construction of a visualization design space that is explorable along two axes: why the visualization was created and how it was constructed. We applied our method to a corpus of scientific research articles from infectious disease genomic epidemiology and derived a Genomic Epidemiology Visualization Typology (GEViT) that describes how visualizations were created from a series of chart types, combinations and enhancements. We have also implemented an online gallery that allows others to explore our resulting design space of visualizations. Our results have important implications for visualization design and for researchers intending to develop or use data visualization tools. Finally, the method that we introduce is extensible to constructing visualizations design spaces across other research areas.