Leveraging personality as a proxy of perceived transparency in hierarchical visualizations

Abstract

Understanding which factors affect information visualization transparency continues to be one of the most relevant challenges in current research, especially since trust models how users build on the knowledge and use it. This work extends the current body of research by studying the user’s subjective evaluation of the visualization transparency of hierarchical charts through the clarity, coverage, and look and feel dimensions. Additionally, we extend the user profile to better understand whether personality facets manifest a biasing effect on the trust-building process. Our results show that the data encodings do not affect how users perceive visualization transparency while controlling for personality factors. Regarding personality, the propensity to trust affects how they judge the clarity of a hierarchical chart. Our findings provide new insights into the research challenges of measuring trust and understanding the transparency of information visualization. Specifically, we explore how personality factors manifest in this trust-building relationship and user interaction within visualization systems.