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Question 1

What is the scent of information?

Answer 1

human tendency to focus on relevant information and filter out all further information.

Question 2

What is Recognition-based Scanning?

Answer 2

The memory process which involves the rapid spreading of attention to recognize familiar elements in a visual array in number of ways.

Question 3

Why is recall a much more effortful memory process than recognition?

Answer 3

It requires conscious, cognitive exertion to actively remember where information is in the display. In order to save the user from having to recall data locations the most important, and regularly attended, information should stand out from the rest of the dashboard contents.

Question 4

Why is recall a much more effortful memory process than recognition?

Answer 4

It requires conscious, cognitive exertion to actively remember where information is in the display. In order to save the user from having to recall data locations the most important, and regularly attended, information should stand out from the rest of the dashboard contents.

Question 5

Von Restorff Effect.

Answer 5

Our ability to better remember or extract items that appear to stand out from the rest with greater immediacy.

Question 6

What is Banner Blindness

Answer 6

A form of focussed visual attention where regular web visitors have learned that advertisements and other filler tend to be displayed along the top banner of a webpage.

Question 7

In which of these cases should you use fragmentation?

a. You have to organize unrelated information
b. You have to show two or more sets of data/graphics
c. You have to organize related information

Answer 7

a. You have to organize unrelated information

Question 8

Which of the following is good advice about using tabs in design?

a. You should abbreviate longer text labels to main consistency.
b. You should make tabs the same width
c. You should be as explicit as you need to, regardless of how wide the tab becomes.

Answer 8

c. You should be as explicit as you need to, regardless of how wide the tab becomes.

Question 9

What can happen if you divide data into panels, tabs, etc. for users to access separately?

Answer 9

Users will find it harder to do comparative analysis

Question 10

What should you do to avoid users needing to take further action to access information related to what the initial display shows?

Answer 10

Try to make the dashboard take up just one screen.

Question 11

Descriptive text is a. qualitative b. quantitative

Answer 11

qualitative

Question 12

statistics is a. qualitative b. quantitative

Answer 12

quantitative

Question 13

A dashboard design should enable viewers to access all information from a ….

Answer 13

single, fixed screen

Question 14

Why should a dashboard design enable viewers to access all information from a single, fixed screen.

Answer 14

Forcing the user to locate information through further operations or interactions adds unnecessary extra steps to the task of accessing all the relevant data represented within the dashboard. However, the sheer volume of raw data that must be shown in some visual form on the dashboard places great strain on the finite amount of screen space.

Question 15

What is a major challenge that designers face when designing a dashboard?

Answer 15

How to fit everything into this fixed space without producing a cluttered display.

Overloading the viewer with statistics, visuals and any other type of information can affect their ability to quickly isolate relevent information from the busy display.

It is the role of the designer to ensure viewers can identify and extract the desired information as quickly and accurately as possible.

Question 16

What can False visual hierarchies lead to?

Answer 16

It can lead the user to neglect important data sets or draw premature conclusions. Only institute visual hierarchies where there is a definite order of importance, otherwise new visitors may overlook important information and experienced users may be frustrated by the misleading design.

Question 17

What should the designer cater to rather than arranging information in an arbitrary view of the how the dashboard SHOULD appear?

Answer 17

The design should be catered according to the type of user or viewer, arranging information to suit their intentions.

Although dashboard displays are at their best when all information can be reached from one fixed screen, the sheer amount of data contained within most dashboards places a great burden on this limited space. It is down to the designer to organize large amounts of information into a coherent body that enables immediate extraction of relevant data.

Question 18

What does the ‘scent of information’ involve in a dashboard design?

Answer 18

That users seek out the most relevant information and neglect most (if not all other data)

Question 19

Of the following, how might you best meet your users’ needs?

a. Include an adequate degree of separation between data sets
b. Include all data for users to find, even if they need to scroll
c. Include qualitative data on one side of the screen and quantitative data on the other.

Answer 19

a. Include an adequate degree of separation between data sets

Question 20

What is Business Intelligence?

Answer 20

Ann interactive process for exploring and analyzing structured, domain-specific information.. to discern business trends or patterns, thereby deriving insights and drawing conclusions.

Question 21

What are the four characteristics of the so-called “aha”! experience?

Answer 21

i) Suddenness, in that the experience is surprising and instantaneous
ii) Ease, meaning the solution is processed without difficulty
iii) positive effect, i.e. the experience is gratifying
vi) the feeling of being right i.e he/she experiencing insight is in no doubt their insight is correct and would withstand further investigation.

Question 22

Reducing the “travel time” required to reach the desired information can support both ___________ and __, which in turn promotes the eureka moments underlying advancements in various fields of study.

Answer 22

Suddenness and Ease

Question 23

How can dashboard design support comparative analysis and promote the “aha” experience associated with gaining insight?

Question 24

According to Sperling (1960) how many visual items can we hold in short-term memory at one time?

Answer 24

9

Question 25

Which of the following is the best approach for designing a dashboard?

Answer 25

Restrict the number of items shown

Question 26

What can be said about using pie charts?

Answer 26

Users have a hard time analyzing information due to the features of pie charts.

Question 27

The ‘generation effect’ means that…?

Answer 27

Users recall information they generate themselves better than externally shown stimuli.

Question 28

Which of the following is a way in which you could support users regarding the “generation effect”?

a. Customize the dashboard according to the needs of one typical user
b. Let users customize the dashboard by arranging things for their own needs.
c. Show all the information users may need but use space and contrast to make it more digestible.

Answer 28

b. Let users customize the dashboard by arranging things for their own needs.

Question 29

How does reducing the visual impact of less important data help viewers?

Answer 29

It limits the number of items demanding the viewer’s attention when they are searching for the most important information or an overview of the data.

Question 30

What should you do in terms of a design’s data-ink ratio?

Answer 30

Minimize the number of non-data pixels so you can focus on data-carrying elements.

Question 31

How can you improve the overall data-ink ratio?

Answer 31

Limit the amount of ink used for less important information so as not to distract the viewer from the information of greatest significance, regardless of whether this is within the whole display or a section of the dashboard.

Question 32

What is meant by exceptions?

Answer 32

Users are only shown information that has changed since their last visit or during the current visit.

Presents the viewer with only information that has changed since their previous visit or during their current visit.

Question 33

What is the best approach to designing for exceptions with a client organization in mind?

Answer 33

Consult various groups of target users and carefully analyze information represented in the dashboard.

Question 34

Information visualization is the art of representing…

Answer 34

data in a way that it is easy to understand and to manipulate, can help us make sense of information and this make it useful in our lives.

Question 35

What are some common uses for information visualization?

Answer 35

1. Presentation (some ideas are simply too awkward to communicate in words and that a visual representation can help someone understand concepts that might otherwise be impossible to explain.)
2. Explorative Analysis (Explorative analysis through information visualization allows you to see where relationships in data may exist.)
3. Confirmation Analysis

Question 36

Information Visualization is designed to help us make sense out of??

Answer 36

data. It can used to explore relationships between data, to confirm ideas we hold about data or to explain data is easy to digest manner. It may be used, rightly or wrongly, to help persuade someone with data.