Title: An evaluation of interactive stacked bar charts

Authors: Walter Abell, Clare Churcher, Jason Lee

Addresses: Applied Computing Group, Lincoln University, Canterbury, New Zealand. ' Applied Computing Group, Lincoln University, Canterbury, New Zealand. ' Gen-i, Christchurch, New Zealand

Abstract: Interactivity is considered an important feature of visualisation software. This paper evaluates the addition of simple interactive features to the display of stacked bar charts. These features allow the user to move different data series onto the chart baseline and to query segment and total values. This approach is evaluated in a software trial where users answer questions based on various bar charts, some interactive and some static. The results show that the interactive features are useful in some cases, but do not always help the user to better interpret the charts.

Keywords: data visualisation; stacked bar charts; data analysis; simple charts; interactivity; software trial.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCAT.2009.024081

International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology, 2009 Vol.34 No.4, pp.285 - 290

Published online: 25 Mar 2009 *

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