Origin-Destination (OD) data is a crucial part of price estimation in the aviation industry, and an
OD flight is any number of flights a passenger takes in a single journey. OD data is a complex set
of data that is both flow and multidimensional type of data.
In this work, the focus is to design interactive visualization techniques to support user exploration
of OD data. The thesis work aims to find which of the two menu designs suit better for OD data
visualization: breadth-first or depth-first menu design. The two menus follow Schneiderman’s Task
by Data Taxonomy, a broader version of the Information Seeking Mantra.
The first menu design is a parallel, breadth-first menu layout. The layout shows the variables in
an open layout and is closer to the original data matrix. The second menu design is a hierarchical,
depth-first layout. This layout is derived from the semantics of the data and is more compact in
terms of screen space.
The two menu designs are compared in an online survey study conducted with the potential end
users. The results of the online survey study are inconclusive, and therefore are complemented
with an expert review. Both the survey study and expert review show that the Sankey graph
is a good visualization type for this work, but the interaction of the two menu designs requires
further improvements. Both of the menu designs received positive and negative feedback in the
expert review. For future work, a solution that combines the positives of the two designs could be
considered.
ACM Computing Classification System (CCS):
Human-Centered Computing → Visualization → Empirical Studies in Visualization
Human-centered computing → Interaction design → Interaction design process and methods →
Interface design prototyping
