Supporting the Comprehension of Interactive Visualizations

Interactive visualizations are supposed to support the sense-making process of vast amounts of data by gaining new insights and there- fore enhancing decision-making outcome. However, to attain this objective it is necessary for the decision-maker to visually encode interactive visualizations and to properly use them for various ana- lytical tasks. In this poster the authors analyze current literature and highlight the differences and intersections between various research disciplines such as Sense-Making, Cognition, Human-Computer- Interaction, Education, Information Visualization. Additionally, the authors will identify current focuses of research as well as gaps to direct further research efforts. The keyword search resulted in 55 publications published in 29 peer-reviewed journals and led to ten assigned research clusters, namely Visual Encoding, Impact of In- teraction, User-Centered, Knowledge Building, Design Principles, Task-Centered, Storytelling, Guidance, Digital Educational Gover- nance, and Evaluation. Among all research disciplines and clusters a strong focus on the comprehension of the visualized information and not on the comprehension of the interactive visualization itself can be identified.