Lifelines: Visualizing Personal Histories
C. Plaisant, B.Milash, A. Rose, W.Widoff and B. Shneiderman
ACM CHI ’96
http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/lifelines
Presented by:
Kartik C. Parija
kartik@cs.umd.edu
University of Maryland
Feb 7th 2001
CMSC 838B: Information Visualization
Description
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Introduces Lifelines as general visualization
environment for personal histories
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Medical and Court Records
Professional Histories
Various types of Biographical Data
Provides various examples of applications where
records of personal histories are needed
Use of graphical time scales as an approach to
visualize histories. [Time Scale + History = Intuitive]
Feb 7th 2001
CMSC 838B: Information Visualization
Description
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Use of graphical time scales as an approach to
visualize histories. [Time Scale + History = Intuitive]
Feb 7th 2001
CMSC 838B: Information Visualization
Description (Cont’d)
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Emphasis on a one screen overview showing multiple
facets of the records
Aspects with varying status are displayed as
horizontal lines, while icons indicate discrete events.
Line color and thickness illustrate relationships or the
significance of events.
Two Projects using Lifelines are covered in depth:
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Records of the MD Department of Juvenile Justice
Viewing Medical Records
Video is worth a thousand Screen-dumps!
Feb 7th 2001
CMSC 838B: Information Visualization
Description (Cont’d) - DJJ
Feb 7th 2001
CMSC 838B: Information Visualization
Description (Cont’d) - DJJ
Feb 7th 2001
CMSC 838B: Information Visualization
Description (Cont’d) – Patient Records
Feb 7th 2001
CMSC 838B: Information Visualization
Description (Cont’d) – Patient Records
Feb 7th 2001
CMSC 838B: Information Visualization
Description (Cont’d) – Patient Records
Feb 7th 2001
CMSC 838B: Information Visualization
Description (Cont’d)
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Demos:
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http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/lifelines/latestdemo/kaiser.html
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http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/lifelines/latestdemo/chi.html
Feb 7th 2001
CMSC 838B: Information Visualization
Description (Cont’d) - Experiment
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Most users were very enthusiastic about the interface
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Importance of the overview
Ease of access to details
Some were concerned about possible bias associated
with the color and thickness coding
Recommendations made:
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Feb 7th 2001
Ability to show future events
The need to be able to see exact dates
Marking of informal groups of related events
CMSC 838B: Information Visualization
Description (Cont’d) - Experiment
Feb 7th 2001
CMSC 838B: Information Visualization
Description (Cont’d) – Merits/Demerits
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Advantages:
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Reduce the chances of missing information
Facilitate the spotting of trends and anomalies
Streamline the access to details
Remain simple and tailorable to various applications
Disadvantages:
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Limitations in record keeping can hamper effectiveness
Agreement on a data encoding scheme is difficult
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Development issues
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Feb 7th 2001
Icons, color and thickness codes have to be chosen carefully
Appropriate labeling of timelines – hard to optimize
Achieving smooth rescaling
CMSC 838B: Information Visualization
Contributions
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Made a great case for necessity of appropriate
visualization and navigation techniques to present
and explore personal history records
Using previous ideas, “theoretical results”, intuition
and software tools, produced LifeLines which seems
a good starting point toward a standard personal
history format
Provided 2 concrete real-world improvements to
existing systems: DJJ and Medical Records
An Experiment was conducted which proved its
effectiveness and identified some problem areas
Feb 7th 2001
CMSC 838B: Information Visualization
Notes on the References
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Clearly Lifelines has used previous work very well.
Not just ideas but software too:
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Semantic Zooming
Elastic Windows
Treemaps (Hook Tool)
Related Work section presents a number of ideas
justifying Lifelines approach to various issues
Feb 7th 2001
CMSC 838B: Information Visualization
Critique
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Overall, I liked the paper:
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Introduced the ideas
Sold me on its importance
Presented a product that mostly achieved what I thought it should
have
A nice mix of published theories, intuition and software
implementation
Admitted to its limitations and concluded by claming that the effort
was a good starting point, which I think it is.
The experiment section was very interesting
especially as there were so many recommendations
made.
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So a more statistical representation (atleast a table or a chart) may
have strengthened the section
A reference to a paper that has covered the statistics of the
experiment(s)?
Feb 7th 2001
CMSC 838B: Information Visualization
What has happened to LifeLines?
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One of the HCIL Licensed Products
More work on using Lifelines for visualizing patient
records
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Enhanced Navigation
Analysis
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More from the author a little later.
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One more Video?
Feb 7th 2001
CMSC 838B: Information Visualization
Favorite Sentence
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This task alone should be worth 20% of the Grade!
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Forced to use “Academy Awards” type strategy:
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Read and re-read paper … then read some more!
Come up with a nominations list
Pick a winner
So the nominees for “Favorite Sentence” are:
………
Feb 7th 2001
CMSC 838B: Information Visualization
Favorite Sentence: The Nominations
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“Decision making critically depends on gleaning the
complete story, spotting trends, noting critical incidents or
cause-effect relations, and reviewing previous actions.”
“Most importantly, large data sets can be displayed along
the time line to help relate a story.”
“Lifelines offer and effective visualization tool, but reality
often thwarts complete and immaculate record keeping.”
“Finally, techniques have been described to handle large
records and to facilitate the associated window
management, making LifeLines a useful starting point
toward a standard personal history format.”
Feb 7th 2001
CMSC 838B: Information Visualization
Favorite Sentence: The Winner
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And my Favorite Sentence is:
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*drumroll*
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“Most importantly, large data sets can be displayed along
the time line to help relate a story.”
Justification:
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Talks about LifeLines and its usefulness
It is really hard to relate a story (in general) and with
large data sets it gets close to impossible
Story telling is very dear to the HCIL spirit!
Feb 7th 2001
CMSC 838B: Information Visualization