Evaluating Information Visualization on Mobile Devices: Gaps and Challenges in the Empirical Evaluation Design Space

Abstract

With their increasingly widespread use, mobile devices have become a highly relevant target environment for Information Visualization. However, far too little attention has been paid to evaluation of interactive visualization techniques on mobile devices. To fill this gap, this paper provides a structured overview of the commonly used evaluation approaches for mobile visualization. For this, it systematically reviews the scientific literature of major InfoVis and HCI venues and categorizes the relevant work based on six dimensions circumscribing the design and evaluation space for visualization on mobile devices. Based on the 21 evaluations reviewed, reproducibility, device variety and usage environment surface as the three main issues in evaluation of information visualization on mobile devices. To overcome these issues, we argue for a transparent description of all research aspects and propose to focus more on context of usage and technology.