Reading 4: Think Differently

by Mike Gleicher on February 1, 2012

(due before Wednesday, Feburary 8th)

This is a classic paper – but I want you to read it to inspire you to “think differently.” This paper is a great example of how you can take a problem with an “obvious” answer, and come up with something different.

When reading it, consider how their solution to showing a route breaks some of the “assumptions” we have about maps.

  • Manessh Agarwalla and Chris Stolte. Rendering Effective Route Maps: Improving Usability Through Generalization. SIGGRAPH 2001. (pdf) (project page) (acm dl)

Think about the domain that you work in – what kinds of assumptions do people make that might be re-assessed to come up with new visualization? What other examples can you think of where challenging typical assumptions can lead to something interesting? What kinds of assumptions can be challenged in visualizations?

Give your answer to those questions (or any other comments you have) on the Piazza page.

If you’re interested, here’s another (optional) paper with an even more non-standard approach to a similar problem:

Here’s a less unnusual solution:

Before class, comment on the paper (or papers if you read more than one), as well as to comment on challenging assumptions.

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