Locatability and Locatability Robustness of Visual Variables in Single Target Localization

TL;DR

This study empirically evaluates the effectiveness and robustness of visual variables like hue and size in locating a target object within complex displays, challenging the idea that some variables automatically 'pop out' regardless of display complexity.

Contribution

It provides the first empirical comparison of visual variables for target localization in visualization, demonstrating that none are immune to increased display complexity and layout effects.

Findings

No visual variable is immune to increased number of objects.

Different visual variables vary in robustness depending on target location.

Layout influences the effectiveness of visual variables in target localization.

Abstract

Finding a particular object in a display is important for viewers in many visualizations, for example, when reacting to brushing or to a highlighted object. This can be enabled by making the target object different in one of the visual variables that determine the object's appearance; for example, by changing its color or size. Certain interpretations of the visual search literature have promoted the view that using visual variables such as hue-often labeled as preattentive-would make the target object automatically "popout," implying that an object can be located almost instantly, regardless of the number of objects in the display. In this paper we present a study that serves as a bridge between the extensive visual search literature and visualization, establishing empirical base measurements for the localization task. By testing displays with up to hundreds of objects, we are able to show that none of the common visual variables is immune to the increase in the number of objects. We also provide the first empirically informed comparisons between visual variables for this task in the context of visualization, and show how different visual variables have varying robustness with respect to two additional dimensions: the location of the target and the overall visual arrangement (layout). A free copy of this paper and all supplemental materials are available on our online repository: https://osf.io/z68ak/overview.