Lecture 2 Flashcards
Logograms
The oldest writing systems used pictures to encode symbols and whole words. Such systems are called logograms. The Kish limestone tablet is considered the earliest written document. It is from Mesopotamia and is mostly pictographic, but it has the beginning of syllabic writing found in cuneiform scripts. It is located in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
Stages of Decision Making: Stage 1
The first step in analyzing any situation is to have a clear understanding of the problem. If we don’t know, what we want to achieve it will be very difficult to analyze the data. Sometimes, while analyzing the data we come across situations where something gets added to the problem definition or the definition gets changed. It’s okay. But to begin with we must have a problem statement. How can we arrive at a problem statement is by asking questions which is related to the field of study. For example, a CEO of a company will ask questions like what is the current profit? Is it increasing or decreasing? Why? What extra can be done to gain more profit? Who are my customers? Why? Are we doing good or bad as a company?
Stage 2
After we define the problem, we look at the data we need.
Do we need one table or multiple tables? What should be the level of detailing in the data? For our example, the CEO or his assistants need to decide whether they need data on a monthly basis or quarterly? Do they need data from all the departments or only a selected one? Will they be needing the data related to expanses on employees recreational activities like team outing? Can we have all the data in one table or shall we go ahead and break it into multiple tables. All these are required to create the data tables. Once the approach is finalized, we can go ahead and pull the data to be used for decision making.
Stage 3
The data table created in the second stage will not be of much use. It will be a collection of numbers and it will be very difficult to read it and infer something.
So, we need to look at the kind of visualization we are going to use.
There are a number of visualization techniques available. But we need to check for those which satisfy the following two conditions:
Maximum visual efficacy – The visualizations should provide better understanding of the data.
Mobility of the image - This is a fundamental point, because it is the internal mobility of the image which characterizes modern graphics. A graphic is no longer “drawn” once and for all; it is “constructed” and reconstructed (manipulated) until all the relationships which lie within it have been perceived. The practical possibilities for permuting the elements on a diagram are numerous. The means employed by the assistant are simple and within anyone’s reach. For the permutation of rows and columns, special equipment is available. Remember that we live in an age of computers and electronic display screens, and that all such permutations can now be carried out by pressing a button.
Bertin, Jacques. Graphics and Graphic Information Processing, De Gruyter, Inc., 2011. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/utd/detail.action?docID=3042442.
Stage 4
The next step in decision making is to process the data.
We need to process the data as much as possible but we need to keep in mind that we should not loose any information while doing this. If we loose information, the insights will not be accurate and may lead to bad decisions.
We can state that the simplification is no more than regrouping similar things. The eye simplifies by correcting the irregularities it notices in the initial disorder. Indeed, the original inventory is a disorder, produced by the random nature of human imagination and the contingencies of general classifications. The eye simplifies. This means that it eliminates differences of position, “visual distances” which signify nothing. The permutation of lines removes everything which hides the specific inherent organization created by the finite set of data. When this organization emerges, it permits subsequent discussion, not about the organization (which only depends on the data), but: 1. about the nature of the data considered at the outset; 2. about the modifications which would ensure a better understanding of the discovered information.
Bertin, Jacques. Graphics and Graphic Information Processing, De Gruyter, Inc., 2011. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/utd/detail.action?docID=3042442.
Stage 5
Once the visualization is ready, we can have insights from it. These insights when aligned with the problem statements, will help in taking major decisions. For our example f CEO looking at the profit curve, can decide based on the insights, which department to focus more, whether to go for an extensive marketing campaign, which products need rebranding and many more.
To come to a decision all the information need to be processed, i.e.
Intrinsic information, that is, the internal relationships revealed by the image
Extrinsic information, that is, the nature of the problem and the interplay of the intrinsic information with everything else. And, by definition, everything else is that which cannot be processed by machine. Extrinsic relationships cannot, by definition, be automated. They are, however, of fundamental importance in interpretation and decision-making. Thus, the most important stages— choice of questions and data, interpretation and decision-making— can never be automated. There is no artificial “intelligence.“
Bertin, Jacques. Graphics and Graphic Information Processing, De Gruyter, Inc., 2011. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/utd/detail.action?docID=3042442.
Role of Perception
Perception plays a very important role in the visualization process. The abilities and limitations of the human visual system may change the intent of the visualization.
Preattentive Processing
Preattentive processing is done by human mind without paying any attention to the situation ahead i.e. in parallel.
Attentive Processing
It is difficult in this display to identify the inner square consisting of right-handed Rs.
Here we need to have attentive focus to solve the problem.
