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November 17, 2010

Speaker: Dr. Fanny Chevalier, OCAD University

Title: The use of smooth animated transitions and simple interactions in information visualization to support rich visual exploration

Abstract: There has been an effort in the past decade to make Information Visualization tools accessible to casual users. One of the most significant examples is the ManyEyes website, where anyone can easily upload, visualize and discuss about data. However, expert users argue that these tools are of a little interest for research purposes, as they become quickly limited, and do not support extensive visual exploration.

I will present how information visualization tools can benefit from smooth animated transitions and rich interaction techniques to support complex visual analysis tasks while providing a simple and consistent interface at an easy reach of non-expert users. Two interactive visualization tools will be used as an illustration of the concept: 1) Diffamation, for navigating through document histories, and 2) GraphDice, designed for Multi-Variate Social Network Analysis.

Biography: Fanny Chevalier is a post-doctoral researcher in Information Visualization at the Ontario College of Art and Design University (OCAD-U), Toronto. After obtaining her PhD in Graph Theory applied to Multimedia in Bordeaux, France, she joined INRIA in Paris, France as a post-doc in Information Visualization and Human-Computer Interaction. Her main research interests are text visualization, large network visualization and interaction, interactive visual interfaces, animation and visualization for collaborative online environments. At OCAD-U, in Toronto, she is currently working closely with artists and designers on text visualization.