Evaluation of the effectiveness of data visualization guidelines

Abstract: The rapid growth of IT spending on software systems emphasizes that software applications are becoming critical assets for organizations. Hence, it is important to identify the right software systems that satisfy user expectations. Software quality determines whether an application satisfies the customer’s needs. Usability is one of the core features of software quality that evaluates the user interactions of software systems. There are several techniques that have been implemented to improve the usability of applications. Data visualization is one of the techniques that could be integrated into software systems to improve the usability aspect. There are various guidelines that have been recommended for data visualization designing. The majority of the guidelines are focused on a specific application type or purpose. Thus, it is beneficial to have a comprehensive set of guidelines that could be applied to any software system. Accordingly, it is important to evaluate whether these guidelines exert a positive impact on the usability of any software system. The problem addressed through this study was the lack of knowledge on the effectiveness of data visualization guidelines. Evaluating the effectiveness of data visualization guidelines applied to a specific tool was the main purpose of this research. Accordingly, the goal of this study was to contribute to the increased knowledge and awareness about the effectiveness of data visualization guidelines. The research phases of the study consisted of three main stages: (1) literature study, (2) preliminary work, and (3) evaluate the guidelines using the tool. In the literature study phase, we identified usability attributes, usability metrics, and data visualization guidelines. During the preliminary work stage, we defined the evaluation criteria based on the usability attributes, selected and merged the guidelines for this study, and developed a software tool based on the comprehensive guidelines that were chosen for our investigation. Finally, during the evaluation stage we evaluated the effectiveness of these guidelines using our software tool. The research methods that were used for this study were explorative and quantitative. The evaluation model of the study consisted of ten usability attributes as the evaluation criteria. We defined these criteria based on the four usability models chosen for this research. In order to assess the evaluation criteria, we selected two evaluation matrices namely page visits per day and customer feedback rating. The data required for the research was collected by measuring these metrics related to the selected usability attributes. The evaluation results of the study showed that the selected data visualization guidelines are capable of enhancing the usability of software systems. Since we designed the software tool within a limited time period, we were able to implement only a few visualizations. However, in the future, the tool could be improved by integrating more visualization components. Further, we could also investigate additional data visualization guidelines that could be utilized to enhance the usability of software tools.