Effect of Displaying Uncertainty in Line and Bar Charts - Presentation and Interpretation

D. van der Laan, Edwin de Jonge, Jessica Solcer

2015

Abstract

This paper investigates the effect of presenting uncertainty in bar and line charts in trend-finding and comparison tasks. Different options for presenting uncertainty were investigated in a carefully designed user evaluation that was conducted on statistical analysts, policy makers and journalists (N = 108). The study includes exploring several options for displaying interval estimates with and without point estimates in line and bar charts. We discuss the results for all options and derive presentation suggestions. Our study indicates that showing uncertainty improves the validity of user statements and that data without point estimates have different display needs.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

van der Laan D., de Jonge E. and Solcer J. (2015). Effect of Displaying Uncertainty in Line and Bar Charts - Presentation and Interpretation . In Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Information Visualization Theory and Applications - Volume 1: IVAPP, (VISIGRAPP 2015) ISBN 978-989-758-088-8, pages 225-232. DOI: 10.5220/0005300702250232

in Bibtex Style

@conference{ivapp15,
author={D. van der Laan and Edwin de Jonge and Jessica Solcer},
title={Effect of Displaying Uncertainty in Line and Bar Charts - Presentation and Interpretation},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Information Visualization Theory and Applications - Volume 1: IVAPP, (VISIGRAPP 2015)},
year={2015},
pages={225-232},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0005300702250232},
isbn={978-989-758-088-8},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF
JO - Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Information Visualization Theory and Applications - Volume 1: IVAPP, (VISIGRAPP 2015)
TI - Effect of Displaying Uncertainty in Line and Bar Charts - Presentation and Interpretation
SN - 978-989-758-088-8
AU - van der Laan D.
AU - de Jonge E.
AU - Solcer J.
PY - 2015
SP - 225
EP - 232
DO - 10.5220/0005300702250232