# Designing for Mobile and Immersive Visual Analytics in the Field

## TL;DR

This paper investigates how integrating mobile and immersive visual analytics tools can improve data collection and analysis in field operations, addressing current limitations like connectivity and screen space.

## Contribution

It introduces FieldView, an open-source prototype that supports situated field analysis, and provides design insights for future visual analytics systems in the field.

## Key findings

- Current approaches have significant shortcomings in field data analysis.
- Design considerations for future systems improve data utility and usability.
- FieldView demonstrates potential for enhanced field data analysis.

## Abstract

Data collection and analysis in the field is critical for operations in domains such as environmental science and public safety. However, field workers currently face data- and platform-oriented issues in efficient data collection and analysis in the field, such as limited connectivity, screen space, and attentional resources. In this paper, we explore how visual analytics tools might transform field practices by more deeply integrating data into these operations. We use a design probe coupling mobile, cloud and immersive analytics components to guide interviews with ten experts from five domains to explore how visual analytics could support data collection and analysis needs in the field. The results identify shortcomings of current approaches and target scenarios and design considerations for future field analysis systems. We embody these findings in FieldView, an extensible, open-source prototype designed to support critical use cases for situated field analysis. Our findings suggest the potential for integrating mobile and immersive technologies to enhance data's utility for various field operations and new directions for visual analytics tools to transform fieldwork.