Information Visualization, 3rd Edition

Chapter Eleven

Visual Thinking Processes

Many visualization systems are designed to help us hunt for new information, so different designs can be evaluated in terms of the efficiency with which knowledge can be gained. Pirolli and Card (1995) drew the following analogy between the way animals seek food and the way people seek information. Animals minimize energy expenditure to get the required gain in sustenance; humans minimize effort to get the necessary gain in information. Foraging for food has much in common with seeking information because, like edible plants in the wild, morsels of information are often grouped but separated by long distances in an information wasteland. Pirolli and Card elaborated the idea to include information “scent”—like ...