1. BETWEEN AESTHETICS AND UTILITY: DESIGNING AMBIENT INFORMATION VISUALIZATIONS Tobias Skog Sara Ljungblad Lars Erik Holmquist

2. GOAL Get information visualization out of the desktop and into the real world 05-650 BID Reader: Jacky Yip

3. AMBIENT INFORMATION VISUALIZATION Ambient MediaInformative Art 05-650 BID Reader: Jacky Yip

4. DESIGNING FOR BUS DEPARTURE TIMES Size time remaining until departure Color time it takes to catch the bus from infovis display Position inbound vs. outbound 05-650 BID Reader: Jacky Yip

5. REDESIGNING THE VISUALIZATION River [blue rectangle] connection to the physical world Central Station [white sq.] handle rush hour extra buses Too-late-to-catch buses represented as white squares 05-650 BID Reader: Jacky Yip

6. 6 in situ on-site interviews (instead of heuristic evaluation and lab studies) EVALUATION ParticipantThat something is visualized What is visualized How the data is visualized 1 ✓✓✓ 2 ✓✓✓ 3 ✓✓✓ 4 ✓✓ 5 ✓✓ 6 05-650 BID Reader: Jacky Yip

7. THE 4 LESSONS By finding information that is relevant to the place where the ambient display is located, every person spending time at that place becomes a potential user. The rate of change in the information should be frequent enough to promote relevance, but the developer can affect the visual appearance by slowing down the changes or adding a small amount of animation. 1. Use localized context 2. Find the right rate of change 05-650 BID Reader: Jacky Yip

8. THE 4 LESSONS Basing a visualization on an artistic style need not hinder – and might even support – the readability and comprehension of an ambient infovis installation. Letting features of the information source affect the visual encoding, thus providing a mnemonic to remember the mapping, is a good way to support the comprehension of the display. 3. Consider an artistic style4. Let the source guide you 05-650 BID Reader: Jacky Yip

9. AESTHETICS AS A PRIMARY PROPERTY both in the design and during use 05-650 BID Reader: Jacky Yip

10. DISCUSSION 1. What’s your opinion on the bus departure times infovis? Did you like it? What did you like/dislike about it? 2. There’s an obvious tension between art and utility. The authors suggest that an artistic style need not hinder – and might even support – the readability and comprehension of an ambient infovis installation. What is your view on how art contributes/hinders infovis design? 05-650 BID Reader: Jacky Yip