Benjamin Bach
Fri 19 May 2017, 11:00 - 12:30
Informatics Forum (IF-4.31/4.33)

If you have a question about this talk, please contact: Diana Dalla Costa (ddallac)

Abstract:

Data visualization is becoming a commonplace methodological part of any data analysis process. This talk tries to span the large variety of types of visualization tools and designs from exploring data to the craft of presenting findings and results in data with visualizations. Through the talk, I present my research on interactive visualizations for networks, temporal data, and matrix data. I will show how many of these stand-alone and research tools are currently being included into an open-source online visualization platform. I will further discuss approaches how such a platform can support the creation of insights and the curation of stories to present the findings found in an extensive analysis. As part of this effort, I will detail our recent work on data comics as an approach to communicate not only changes in temporal data but to interweave narration, textual explanations, and data visualizations. Eventually, I will sketch open research questions for investigating visualizations for exploration, explanation, as well as visualization as a useful medium in people's data analysis workflows.

Bio: 

Before joining the University of Edinburgh as a Lecturer in 2017, Benjamin worked as postdoc at Harvard University (Visual Computing Group), Monash University, as well as the Microsoft-Research Inria Joint Centre. Benjamin was visiting researcher at the University of Washington and Microsoft Research in 2015. He obtained his PhD in 2014 from the Université Paris-Sud where he worked at the Aviz Group and Inria. The PhD thesis entitled Connections, Changes, and Cubes: Unfolding Dynamic Networks for Visual Exploration got awarded an honorable mention as the Best Thesis by the IEEE Visualization Committee.