A Framework of Interaction Costs in Information Visualization

Interaction cost is an important but poorly understood factor in visualization design. We propose a framework of interaction costs inspired by Norman's Seven Stages of Action to facilitate study. From 484 papers, we collected 61 interaction-related usability problems reported in 32 user studies and placed them into our framework of seven costs: (1) Decision costs to form goals; (2) System-power costs to form system operations; (3) Multiple input mode costs to form physical sequences; (4) Physical-motion costs to execute sequences; (5) Visual-cluttering costs to perceive state; (6) View-change costs to interpret perception; (7) State-change costs to evaluate interpretation. We also suggested ways to narrow the gulfs of execution (2

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2008
• Where: TVCG
• Authors: Heidi Lam
• Keywords: Interaction Costs, Interaction-related Usability Problems, TVCG 2008, Visualization Design