VISUALIZATION

Challenge & Selection

The first tool I used was the tool of Visualization, or Visual Thinking, to achieve a shared understanding  of a problem space among a diverse group of stakeholders before attempting to identify and define  possible solutions to the problem. I use this approach often with our customers, who are government  agencies working to apply technology innovations to modernize their mission or the delivery of their  services to their customer, which may be U.S. citizens, businesses, and non-citizens. I have used the  technique of using a straw man visualization of a problem domain with a set of questions or prompts for  discussion to allow a diverse group of stakeholders to learn from each other in the process of defining  the scope, boundaries, key elements, and relationships between elements to consider when identifying  pain points and opportunities for improvements or solutions.

Policy modelling lacks visualisation techniques able to navigate through text, analyse large text  repositories, analyse opinions, and to interactively simulate policy decisions (Kohlhammer et al.,  201043). New tools like the Word Tree44, Treemap, Tag Cloud and Bubble Chart45 are available but lack  interactivity. Another possible challenge is to adapt existing techniques to policy modeling: - CirVis3D46,  which can visualize clustered opinion snippets as well as display time series in order to show the opinion  trends over time - RelaNet47, which displays the network relations and thereby is able to show the  connections and co-variances of the different opinions overtime

Current research

. Close the loop of information selection, preparation and visualization

•  Simultaneous multiple visualization

•  Integration of visualisation with comments / wiki / blogs

•  Collaborative platform display

•  Interaction between visualisation and models

•  Mobile visual analytics tools•  Geo-visualisation of government data

•  Integration with opinion mining and participatory sensing

•  Evaluation framework for visualisation effectiveness•  Visualisation infrastructures for policy  modelling issues

• Future research: long term and short term issues Short-term research  Re-usable, mashable tools for  visual analytics

•  Tighter integration between automatic computation and interactive visualization

•  Bias identification and signalling in visualization

•  Perceptual, cognitive and graphical principles

•  Efficiency of the visualisation techniques to enable interactive exploration interaction

• techniques such as focus & context  Impact evaluation of visual analytics on policy choices

Long-term research

. Learning adaptive algorithm for users intent

•  Advanced visual analytics interfaces

•  Intuitive affordable visual analytics interface for citizens

•  Development of novel interaction algorithms incorporating machine recognition of the

• actual user intent and appropriate adaptation of main display parameters such as the level of detail,  data selection, etc. by which the data is presented

Application

I start the process by creating a straw man graphic of the problem domain. To develop the straw man  graphic, I will draw from any existing material available to understand the environment. The existing  material may be operational or procedural documents, training materials, marketing materials, GAO or  other auditing reports. If materials are not available, then I conduct informal interviews with one-three  of the stakeholders who serve as my main points of contact on the initiative. If appropriate to the  situation, I will borrow the concept to “front-stage/back-stage” from previous research, and discussed in  David Gray’s book, “The Connected Company”. The front-stage/back-stage approach helps to reinforce  the notion that every service – even an internal service – has customers with whom the service provider  interacts and internal processes that enable the organization to provide the service. The template I  often start with also has a column on the left to identify Partners and Value Chain Providers and a  column on the right to identify Oversight Organizations, such as Congress, GAO, labor unions, advocacy  groups, and other entities that may add constraints to how the organization operates. The straw man  graphic is simple, using simple shapes and icons available in Visio or on the Internet. If the front- stage/back-stage view doesn’t work, then I will create a different type of visual, either based on a high- level process flow with swim lanes for different stakeholders, or another format. For the activity, I will  divide the stakeholders into groups of 5-6 participants each representing a different organization or area  of interest. Each group receives a poster-size copy of the straw man graphic that they can write on

directly, or use sticky notes to make comments. I give them two-three questions to answer, such as: 1)  What key elements are missing from the graphic? 2) What would you change about the graphic to make  it more accurately reflect your problem space? 3) What key insights do you have about the relationships  between the entities in your problem space? I give them approximately 20 minutes to discuss the  questions and mark up the graphic. Then I have each group report out on their answers to those three  questions while pointing to the mark-ups on their poster. As each group reports out, I record  commonalities in the insights of each group, and then additional insights that come from the group  discussion on an additional copy of the graphic.

Insight & Approach

What I have learned from conducting this exercise with several groups is that while the graphic –  especially the revised graphic that incorporates their feedback – is important for reinforcing their  understanding of the problem they are working to solve, the more valuable aspect of the activity is the  shared insights and shared learning that occurs while they are working to define their problem space.  The graphic gives the diverse group of stakeholders a focal point for discussion that allows them to  share their perspectives and develop insights into potential root causes of their problems. While they  could create the graphic from a blank slate in a collaborative manner, starting with a straw man jump  starts the conversation for them. They can quickly identify where they are in the graphic – or if they are  missing – and can more quickly gain new insights about relationships between key entities instead of  taking time to identify them. They can also identify variables in the problem space – that is, it helps  them to identify what they don’t know, in what areas they need to obtain information or data to provide  the values for the variables. Since I discovered that the most valuable aspect is the shared insights and  learning, next time I would use the visualization activity as a starting point for a series of design thinking  activities. Then the revised graphics that incorporates their combined feedback can serve as a reference  tool for their remainder work.

