bubble visualization legend and colouring

[jchartrand]

@sfarnel @CarlsoFiorention @danydvd

Creating a new issue here for this, to make discussion easier.

Two requested changes (in other issues) for the bubbles have been:

1. remove the legend
2. make all colours blue

One reason for keeping the legend is because we can't always fit the label into a bubble, like you can see here:

You can also see from the picture that the legend depends on having multiple colours (to allow linking a coloured bubble to its entry in the legend), so if we want to keep the legend, we can't easily do without the colouring.

Thoughts?

[CarlsoFiorention]

Is there a way to please the label outside the bubble when the bubble is too small? That would be the best. I don’t think legends and different colors are necessary, just one color for all bubbles (or one blue color pallette with variations like the current version) and only highlight the selection with a darker tone (clicked or hoovered).

On Sep 18, 2020, at 9:11 AM, James Chartrand notifications@github.com wrote:

@sfarnel https://github.com/sfarnel @CarlsoFiorention https://github.com/CarlsoFiorention @danydvd https://github.com/danydvd Creating a new issue here for this, to make discussion easier.

Two requested changes (in other issues) for the bubbles have been:

remove the legend make all colours blue One reason for keeping the legend is because we can't always fit the label into a bubble, like you can see here:

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/547165/93613037-4ff7a480-f99e-11ea-8418-539b751ad9db.png You can also see from the picture that the legend depends on having multiple colours (to allow linking a coloured bubble to its entry in the legend), so if we want to keep the legend, we can't easily do without the colouring.

Thoughts?

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AGFMUPL3CC3NRQ5SZOKN2Z3SGN2AJANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

[jchartrand]

On Sep 18, 2020, at 11:24 AM, Carlos Fiorentino notifications@github.com wrote:

Is there a way to please the label outside the bubble when the bubble is too small?

Short answer: no. The library we are using doesn’t support that. Even if we found a library that did, or we wanted to modify the code ourselves, there would be complications with label positioning (which is possibly why the library doesn’t support it), e.g., knowing which bubble was associated with which label, especially when there are a lot of bubbles. And some of the text would probably have to overlap as well.

Another possibility is to show the label when clicking on a specific bubble. I’d have to write code for this, though, which could take a few hours.

Taking out the legend, you’d also lose what some would probably consider meaningful and useful information: the legend immediately shows at a glance all the institutions or degrees in the result set.

That would be the best. I don’t think legends and different colors are necessary, just one color for all bubbles (or one blue color pallette with variations like the current version) and only highlight the selection with a darker tone (clicked or hoovered).

On Sep 18, 2020, at 9:11 AM, James Chartrand notifications@github.com wrote:

@sfarnel https://github.com/sfarnel @CarlsoFiorention https://github.com/CarlsoFiorention @danydvd https://github.com/danydvd Creating a new issue here for this, to make discussion easier.

Two requested changes (in other issues) for the bubbles have been:

remove the legend make all colours blue One reason for keeping the legend is because we can't always fit the label into a bubble, like you can see here:

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/547165/93613037-4ff7a480-f99e-11ea-8418-539b751ad9db.png You can also see from the picture that the legend depends on having multiple colours (to allow linking a coloured bubble to its entry in the legend), so if we want to keep the legend, we can't easily do without the colouring.

Thoughts?

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AGFMUPL3CC3NRQ5SZOKN2Z3SGN2AJANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

— You are receiving this because you authored the thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-694932220, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAEFSXO6JGLPM3YUGI7A5HLSGN3SVANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

[sfarnel]

Thanks both. @CarlsoFiorention what do you think about going with the one blue color pallet and keeping the legend?

[CarlsoFiorention]

On Sep 18, 2020, at 9:38 AM, James Chartrand notifications@github.com wrote:

On Sep 18, 2020, at 11:24 AM, Carlos Fiorentino notifications@github.com wrote:

Is there a way to please the label outside the bubble when the bubble is too small?

Short answer: no. The library we are using doesn’t support that. Even if we found a library that did, or we wanted to modify the code ourselves, there would be complications with label positioning (which is possibly why the library doesn’t support it), e.g., knowing which bubble was associated with which label, especially when there are a lot of bubbles. And some of the text would probably have to overlap as well.

Another possibility is to show the label when clicking on a specific bubble. I’d have to write code for this, though, which could take a few hours.

I understand the limitations of the existing visualization. Still, I think showing the labels when hoovering would be best. Overlapping and congestion of labels is not a problem when the user can interact activating/deactivating items by clicking/hoovering or even clicking the item from a list (i.e. the legend). This is the behaviour a user will expect from a widget (different from a simple chart)

Taking out the legend, you’d also lose what some would probably consider meaningful and useful information: the legend immediately shows at a glance all the institutions or degrees in the result set.

I think needing a legend suggests a limitation of this visualization. As an alternative, turning the legend into a clickable list with no references to color would do the job, adding positive redundancy to clickable bubbles. If none of this is possible now perhaps it needs to be consider for the future when the widget can be fully developed.

That would be the best. I don’t think legends and different colors are necessary, just one color for all bubbles (or one blue color pallette with variations like the current version) and only highlight the selection with a darker tone (clicked or hoovered).

On Sep 18, 2020, at 9:11 AM, James Chartrand notifications@github.com wrote:

@sfarnel https://github.com/sfarnel @CarlsoFiorention https://github.com/CarlsoFiorention @danydvd https://github.com/danydvd Creating a new issue here for this, to make discussion easier.

Two requested changes (in other issues) for the bubbles have been:

remove the legend make all colours blue One reason for keeping the legend is because we can't always fit the label into a bubble, like you can see here:

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/547165/93613037-4ff7a480-f99e-11ea-8418-539b751ad9db.png You can also see from the picture that the legend depends on having multiple colours (to allow linking a coloured bubble to its entry in the legend), so if we want to keep the legend, we can't easily do without the colouring.

Thoughts?

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AGFMUPL3CC3NRQ5SZOKN2Z3SGN2AJANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

— You are receiving this because you authored the thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-694932220, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAEFSXO6JGLPM3YUGI7A5HLSGN3SVANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-694939499, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AGFMUPPDCZ2LOXEOSK4D7CTSGN5G5ANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

[CarlsoFiorention]

Yes, in my previous message I consider this an alternative, but the legend in this case shown as a list, not as a reference.

On Sep 18, 2020, at 10:12 AM, Sharon Farnel notifications@github.com wrote:

Thanks both. @CarlsoFiorention https://github.com/CarlsoFiorention what do you think about going with the one blue color pallet and keeping the legend?

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-694956458, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AGFMUPLRN4QT5YD4SL37RWLSGOBGHANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

[sfarnel]

Thanks both. @jchartrand does the visualization allow for making the legend a clickable list, with a single color pallet?

[jchartrand]

I'm not sure I totally understand all of the discussion here, but I think this is the idea:

1) make everything blue - bubbles, legend, everything. 2) keep the legend where it is now (to give that clear "at-a-glance" view of all universities in the result set) 3) if someone clicks on a bubble, highlight the corresponding item in the legend 4) if someone clicks on a legend item, highlight (by changing the shade of blue) the corresponding bubble

1 should be fine. 2 of course is fine, because no change. 3 I can't out-of-the-box highlight items in the legend (I'd have to change the source code of the visualization), but an alternative is that when someone clicks a bubble I popup the label (e.g., university name) then. This would still take a couple of hours.

4. I think I can also do this, but it would also take a few hours.

[sfarnel]

Thanks @jchartrand If we enhance this visualization with custom code, what is the potential risk in terms of sustainability over time? Thanks!

[jchartrand]

So I just noticed that if you hover (mouseover) on top of a bubble whose label is hidden, it will eventually show you the label, but we may not have noticed because there is a fair bit of a delay in the mouseover, and so it might also therefore not be obvious to people that there is a mouseover, but maybe it is good enough for now, and later a click to invoke a popover could be added, or the mouseover could be speeded up.

And, I also see that if you mouseover the legend items, the corresponding bubble is highlighted (by expanding the bubble a bit). And this mouseover is pretty much instantaneous.

So maybe we are all good? I'll just make everything blue?

[sfarnel]

Thanks @jchartrand Let's go with the blue palette for now and we will note this additional functionality as desired for down the line.

[jchartrand]

Okay, I think I've made all the changes.

[sfarnel]

@CarlsoFiorention can you have a look and provide any final feedback at this stage? Thanks!

[CarlsoFiorention]

See the screenshot attached with a couple of comments

On Sep 18, 2020, at 3:24 PM, Sharon Farnel notifications@github.com wrote:

@CarlsoFiorention https://github.com/CarlsoFiorention can you have a look and provide any final feedback at this stage? Thanks!

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695093029, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AGFMUPLRYCXUYBR3DQMLEU3SGPFXNANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

[sfarnel]

Thanks Carlos It seems the attachment didn't get attached.

[CarlsoFiorention]

It should work now...

Fine tuning 2.pdf

[jchartrand]

I’ll see what I can do about the chopped left bubbles on select.

You are right about the single colours on the legend, although I’m not sure what I can easily do about that. The legend is put there and controlled by the visualization package, and it assumes colours are used to match bubbles to the legend. We are at the mercy of the packages we are using - I will see what it allows.

On Sep 18, 2020, at 7:14 PM, Carlos Fiorentino notifications@github.com wrote:

It should work now...

Fine tuning 2.pdf https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/files/5248599/Fine.tuning.2.pdf — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695123886, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAEFSXNSG2PAHUTAAW7GCG3SGPSUTANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

[jchartrand]

I've shrunk the expansion of the visualization so it hopefully shouldn't be truncated anymore.

The legend colours, however, I can't easily get rid of - they are an intrinsic part of the visualization. We'd have to change the source code.

[sfarnel]

Thanks @jchartrand Let's consider this closed, adding changes to source code as a desirable for future.

[sfarnel]

@jchartrand just noticed an issue with the legend getting cut off (or hidden behind a bubble)when there are many degree options. for example, doing a search for mental health results in this:

[jchartrand]

I think it's because the legend boxes are the same colour as the bubbles, so they blend in.

I guess when the visualization is used as intended, i.e., with different colours for each bubble, this isn’t so much of a problem, although it would still be a problem if it happened that a legend entry overlapped its own bubble. Bit of an oversight in the visualization package I guess, although maybe they just didn’t think it was so bad with one overlapping entry.

I could allocate more of the screen to the legend which might stop the overlap, although it would make the bubbles smaller. Shall I try that?

On Sep 19, 2020, at 2:13 PM, Sharon Farnel notifications@github.com wrote:

@jchartrand https://github.com/jchartrand just noticed an issue with the legend getting cut off (or hidden behind a bubble)when there are many degree options. for example, doing a search for mental health results in this:

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/4697932/93686129-6c184600-fa71-11ea-9f64-c533052b6caf.png — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695339947, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAEFSXKRR6D7VMXTJL7HU4LSGTYC5ANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

[sfarnel]

Thanks @jchartrand why don't we try allocating a little more space to the legend and seeing how it looks?

[CarlsoFiorention]

On Sep 19, 2020, at 12:23 PM, James Chartrand notifications@github.com wrote:

I think it's because the legend boxes are the same colour as the bubbles, so they blend in.

I agree. However, even with different color keys the mix with bubbles is not beneficial if it compromises the reading. It is a limitation of the visualization.

I guess when the visualization is used as intended, i.e., with different colours for each bubble, this isn’t so much of a problem, although it would still be a problem if it happened that a legend entry overlapped its own bubble. Bit of an oversight in the visualization package I guess, although maybe they just didn’t think it was so bad with one overlapping entry.

The legend is clearly something we don’t need. We need the visualizations to work for us (and the users) and not the other way round.

I could allocate more of the screen to the legend which might stop the overlap, although it would make the bubbles smaller. Shall I try that?

I would not compromise the main visualization for the sake of the legend. Can the legend be moved somewhere else? (e.g. to the bottom) or make it not visible at all?

On Sep 19, 2020, at 2:13 PM, Sharon Farnel notifications@github.com wrote:

@jchartrand https://github.com/jchartrand just noticed an issue with the legend getting cut off (or hidden behind a bubble)when there are many degree options. for example, doing a search for mental health results in this:

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/4697932/93686129-6c184600-fa71-11ea-9f64-c533052b6caf.png — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695339947, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAEFSXKRR6D7VMXTJL7HU4LSGTYC5ANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695341131, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AGFMUPMHCN6YZ4WORO2JVZDSGTZLXANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

[jchartrand]

On Sep 19, 2020, at 3:28 PM, Carlos Fiorentino notifications@github.com wrote:

On Sep 19, 2020, at 12:23 PM, James Chartrand notifications@github.com wrote:

I think it's because the legend boxes are the same colour as the bubbles, so they blend in.

I agree. However, even with different color keys the mix with bubbles is not beneficial if it compromises the reading. It is a limitation of the visualization.

I guess when the visualization is used as intended, i.e., with different colours for each bubble, this isn’t so much of a problem, although it would still be a problem if it happened that a legend entry overlapped its own bubble. Bit of an oversight in the visualization package I guess, although maybe they just didn’t think it was so bad with one overlapping entry.

The legend is clearly something we don’t need.

The value of the legend is that it immediately shows all values (university names or degree names) in the result set, which some people could find useful. Legends on bubble charts are fairly common.

I could probably add an option, like a button, or a toggle, to hide the legend on demand.

As always, I defer to Sharon.

We need the visualizations to work for us (and the users) and not the other way round.

I could allocate more of the screen to the legend which might stop the overlap, although it would make the bubbles smaller. Shall I try that?

I would not compromise the main visualization for the sake of the legend. Can the legend be moved somewhere else? (e.g. to the bottom) or make it not visible at all?

On Sep 19, 2020, at 2:13 PM, Sharon Farnel notifications@github.com wrote:

@jchartrand https://github.com/jchartrand just noticed an issue with the legend getting cut off (or hidden behind a bubble)when there are many degree options. for example, doing a search for mental health results in this:

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/4697932/93686129-6c184600-fa71-11ea-9f64-c533052b6caf.png — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695339947, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAEFSXKRR6D7VMXTJL7HU4LSGTYC5ANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695341131, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AGFMUPMHCN6YZ4WORO2JVZDSGTZLXANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695347567, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAEFSXLJCDX3TVOQHTQ3QMTSGUA63ANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

[jchartrand]

@sfarnel I tried allocating more space to the legend, but it continues to overlap. Seems just to be how they set it up.

@CarlsoFiorention And unfortunately, I can't (easily) move it elsewhere (without modifying the source code of the visualization package).

[CarlsoFiorention]

I disagree, the purpose of a good visualization is being self explanatory. Legends are only useful for complex visualizations (not our case), they should only help to navigate the visualization and not conveying data. If we need the legend to show the total numbers by degree, why do we need to quantify the degrees in bubbles in the first place? Redundancy is not a big problem, that’s why having a list of all degrees next to the visualization is not a big deal, unless it affects the visualization. If we recall correctly, there was no “Degrees” visualization in the original design for the same line of reasoning.

On Sep 19, 2020, at 1:59 PM, James Chartrand notifications@github.com wrote:

On Sep 19, 2020, at 3:28 PM, Carlos Fiorentino notifications@github.com wrote:

On Sep 19, 2020, at 12:23 PM, James Chartrand notifications@github.com wrote:

I think it's because the legend boxes are the same colour as the bubbles, so they blend in.

I agree. However, even with different color keys the mix with bubbles is not beneficial if it compromises the reading. It is a limitation of the visualization.

I guess when the visualization is used as intended, i.e., with different colours for each bubble, this isn’t so much of a problem, although it would still be a problem if it happened that a legend entry overlapped its own bubble. Bit of an oversight in the visualization package I guess, although maybe they just didn’t think it was so bad with one overlapping entry.

The legend is clearly something we don’t need.

The value of the legend is that it immediately shows all values (university names or degree names) in the result set, which some people could find useful. Legends on bubble charts are fairly common.

I could probably add an option, like a button, or a toggle, to hide the legend on demand.

As always, I defer to Sharon.

We need the visualizations to work for us (and the users) and not the other way round.

I could allocate more of the screen to the legend which might stop the overlap, although it would make the bubbles smaller. Shall I try that?

I would not compromise the main visualization for the sake of the legend. Can the legend be moved somewhere else? (e.g. to the bottom) or make it not visible at all?

On Sep 19, 2020, at 2:13 PM, Sharon Farnel notifications@github.com wrote:

@jchartrand https://github.com/jchartrand just noticed an issue with the legend getting cut off (or hidden behind a bubble)when there are many degree options. for example, doing a search for mental health results in this:

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/4697932/93686129-6c184600-fa71-11ea-9f64-c533052b6caf.png — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695339947, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAEFSXKRR6D7VMXTJL7HU4LSGTYC5ANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695341131, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AGFMUPMHCN6YZ4WORO2JVZDSGTZLXANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695347567, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAEFSXLJCDX3TVOQHTQ3QMTSGUA63ANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695350314, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AGFMUPMR7FHJUVIHL3XOJEDSGUERLANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

[sfarnel]

Thanks both. This is certainly a pickle. My concern about modifying the source code is that it causes sustainability issues down the line if we are unable to upgrade it, for example, or if somehow stops working. @jc can you remind us which visualization you are using here? I can try and find another javascript one that we might try. @CarlsoFiorention do you know of another javascript visualization we could use? Let's pause additional work on this until we can do some more minor investigation. It may be that we decide to put all or some of the remaining development hours into changing this code, but I would like to look a bit first. We can leave as is for now.

[jchartrand]

On Sep 19, 2020, at 4:14 PM, Carlos Fiorentino notifications@github.com wrote:

I disagree, the purpose of a good visualization is being self explanatory. Legends are only useful for complex visualizations (not our case), they should only help to navigate the visualization and not conveying data. If we need the legend to show the total numbers by degree,

The legend doesn’t show any numbers (although it is sorted by result size). It only shows the range of values in a given result set (which as far as I can tell we don’t show anywhere else on the site). With the legend, someone might, for example, see that, ‘oh, Queen’s University is represented here’, which they wouldn’t (easily) see if Queen’s had a very small bubble. It could provoke interesting questions for certain people.

Same goes for the degrees - if I noticed that a result set had a thesis with an ’sjd’ degree, I might find that interesting and want to dig into that (but wouldn’t have known about the ’sjd’ degree without the legend - and indeed, this did pique my curiousity, so I checked, and an SJD is a Doctor of Juridical Science, considered the ‘most advanced law degree', offered by some law schools, including U of T)

This might also then make a case for including degrees as a search option, e.g., show me all theses written for an sjd (which is in fact exactly what I would now liked to have searched for).

I could also imagine someone asking, “Give me the list of universities that have published theses written about velodromes", the answer to which I see from the bubble legend is “McGill, UBC, Memorial, and Alberta” (and again, I don’t think I can get that list any other way from this site. Could do a SPARQL query, but that might be beyond many people).

The value of the legend for end users would be an interesting question to put to test users, with a kind of A/B test, but in the interest of diminishing time, I defer to Sharon.

For interest sake, here’s a screenshot (hopefully it makes it in through the email) of the bubbles for all theses (i.e., when invoking an empty search):

why do we need to quantify the degrees in bubbles in the first place? Redundancy is not a big problem, that’s why having a list of all degrees next to the visualization is not a big deal, unless it affects the visualization. If we recall correctly, there was no “Degrees” visualization in the original design for the same line of reasoning.

On Sep 19, 2020, at 1:59 PM, James Chartrand notifications@github.com wrote:

On Sep 19, 2020, at 3:28 PM, Carlos Fiorentino notifications@github.com wrote:

On Sep 19, 2020, at 12:23 PM, James Chartrand notifications@github.com wrote:

I think it's because the legend boxes are the same colour as the bubbles, so they blend in.

I agree. However, even with different color keys the mix with bubbles is not beneficial if it compromises the reading. It is a limitation of the visualization.

I guess when the visualization is used as intended, i.e., with different colours for each bubble, this isn’t so much of a problem, although it would still be a problem if it happened that a legend entry overlapped its own bubble. Bit of an oversight in the visualization package I guess, although maybe they just didn’t think it was so bad with one overlapping entry.

The legend is clearly something we don’t need.

The value of the legend is that it immediately shows all values (university names or degree names) in the result set, which some people could find useful. Legends on bubble charts are fairly common.

I could probably add an option, like a button, or a toggle, to hide the legend on demand.

As always, I defer to Sharon.

We need the visualizations to work for us (and the users) and not the other way round.

I could allocate more of the screen to the legend which might stop the overlap, although it would make the bubbles smaller. Shall I try that?

I would not compromise the main visualization for the sake of the legend. Can the legend be moved somewhere else? (e.g. to the bottom) or make it not visible at all?

On Sep 19, 2020, at 2:13 PM, Sharon Farnel notifications@github.com wrote:

@jchartrand https://github.com/jchartrand just noticed an issue with the legend getting cut off (or hidden behind a bubble)when there are many degree options. for example, doing a search for mental health results in this:

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/4697932/93686129-6c184600-fa71-11ea-9f64-c533052b6caf.png — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695339947, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAEFSXKRR6D7VMXTJL7HU4LSGTYC5ANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695341131, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AGFMUPMHCN6YZ4WORO2JVZDSGTZLXANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695347567, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAEFSXLJCDX3TVOQHTQ3QMTSGUA63ANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695350314, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AGFMUPMR7FHJUVIHL3XOJEDSGUERLANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695351675, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAEFSXPCTQ4KZPUBNO6XJXLSGUGKLANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

[jchartrand]

On Sep 19, 2020, at 4:42 PM, Sharon Farnel notifications@github.com wrote:

Thanks both. This is certainly a pickle. My concern about modifying the source code is that it causes sustainability issues down the line if we are unable to upgrade it, for example, or if somehow stops working. @jc https://github.com/jc can you remind us which visualization you are using here?

https://www.npmjs.com/package/@weknow/react-bubble-chart-d3/v/1.0.10 I can try and find another javascript one that we might try.

I also did a quick search again now, but didn’t want to spend too much time on it. It’d be great if someone could find another one. @CarlsoFiorention https://github.com/CarlsoFiorention do you know of another javascript visualization we could use? Let's pause additional work on this until we can do some more minor investigation. It may be that we decide to put all or some of the remaining development hours into changing this code, but I would like to look a bit first. We can leave as is for now.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695354147, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAEFSXKXNTNJKO5LM23TD4DSGUJTLANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

[CarlsoFiorention]

On Sep 19, 2020, at 2:50 PM, James Chartrand notifications@github.com wrote:

On Sep 19, 2020, at 4:14 PM, Carlos Fiorentino notifications@github.com wrote:

I disagree, the purpose of a good visualization is being self explanatory. Legends are only useful for complex visualizations (not our case), they should only help to navigate the visualization and not conveying data. If we need the legend to show the total numbers by degree,

The legend doesn’t show any numbers (although it is sorted by result size). It only shows the range of values in a given result set (which as far as I can tell we don’t show anywhere else on the site). With the legend, someone might, for example, see that, ‘oh, Queen’s University is represented here’, which they wouldn’t (easily) see if Queen’s had a very small bubble. It could provoke interesting questions for certain people.

Sorry, I meant the total number of degrees. For me, this is just a repetition of what you should see in the bubbles. So it is the same information for the same example you give...

Same goes for the degrees - if I noticed that a result set had a thesis with an ’sjd’ degree, I might find that interesting and want to dig into that (but wouldn’t have known about the ’sjd’ degree without the legend - and indeed, this did pique my curiousity, so I checked, and an SJD is a Doctor of Juridical Science, considered the ‘most advanced law degree', offered by some law schools, including U of T)

This might also then make a case for including degrees as a search option, e.g., show me all theses written for an sjd (which is in fact exactly what I would now liked to have searched for).

I could also imagine someone asking, “Give me the list of universities that have published theses written about velodromes", the answer to which I see from the bubble legend is “McGill, UBC, Memorial, and Alberta” (and again, I don’t think I can get that list any other way from this site. Could do a SPARQL query, but that might be beyond many people).

Would this be the case of someone typing “velodrome” in the query organized by institution?

The value of the legend for end users would be an interesting question to put to test users, with a kind of A/B test, but in the interest of diminishing time, I defer to Sharon.

Based on information design principles and a lot of research done in the matter (e.g. E.Tufte) I’m convinced that we don’t need legends if the visualizations work properly

For interest sake, here’s a screenshot (hopefully it makes it in through the email) of the bubbles for all theses (i.e., when invoking an empty search):

why do we need to quantify the degrees in bubbles in the first place? Redundancy is not a big problem, that’s why having a list of all degrees next to the visualization is not a big deal, unless it affects the visualization. If we recall correctly, there was no “Degrees” visualization in the original design for the same line of reasoning.

On Sep 19, 2020, at 1:59 PM, James Chartrand notifications@github.com wrote:

On Sep 19, 2020, at 3:28 PM, Carlos Fiorentino notifications@github.com wrote:

On Sep 19, 2020, at 12:23 PM, James Chartrand notifications@github.com wrote:

I think it's because the legend boxes are the same colour as the bubbles, so they blend in.

I agree. However, even with different color keys the mix with bubbles is not beneficial if it compromises the reading. It is a limitation of the visualization.

I guess when the visualization is used as intended, i.e., with different colours for each bubble, this isn’t so much of a problem, although it would still be a problem if it happened that a legend entry overlapped its own bubble. Bit of an oversight in the visualization package I guess, although maybe they just didn’t think it was so bad with one overlapping entry.

The legend is clearly something we don’t need.

The value of the legend is that it immediately shows all values (university names or degree names) in the result set, which some people could find useful. Legends on bubble charts are fairly common.

I could probably add an option, like a button, or a toggle, to hide the legend on demand.

As always, I defer to Sharon.

We need the visualizations to work for us (and the users) and not the other way round.

I could allocate more of the screen to the legend which might stop the overlap, although it would make the bubbles smaller. Shall I try that?

I would not compromise the main visualization for the sake of the legend. Can the legend be moved somewhere else? (e.g. to the bottom) or make it not visible at all?

On Sep 19, 2020, at 2:13 PM, Sharon Farnel notifications@github.com wrote:

@jchartrand https://github.com/jchartrand just noticed an issue with the legend getting cut off (or hidden behind a bubble)when there are many degree options. for example, doing a search for mental health results in this:

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/4697932/93686129-6c184600-fa71-11ea-9f64-c533052b6caf.png — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695339947, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAEFSXKRR6D7VMXTJL7HU4LSGTYC5ANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695341131, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AGFMUPMHCN6YZ4WORO2JVZDSGTZLXANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695347567, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAEFSXLJCDX3TVOQHTQ3QMTSGUA63ANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695350314, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AGFMUPMR7FHJUVIHL3XOJEDSGUERLANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695351675, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAEFSXPCTQ4KZPUBNO6XJXLSGUGKLANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695354801, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AGFMUPM5KVWIQG72JKZHEWTSGUKSXANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

[jchartrand]

On Sep 19, 2020, at 7:11 PM, Carlos Fiorentino notifications@github.com wrote:

On Sep 19, 2020, at 2:50 PM, James Chartrand notifications@github.com wrote:

On Sep 19, 2020, at 4:14 PM, Carlos Fiorentino notifications@github.com wrote:

I disagree, the purpose of a good visualization is being self explanatory. Legends are only useful for complex visualizations (not our case), they should only help to navigate the visualization and not conveying data. If we need the legend to show the total numbers by degree,

The legend doesn’t show any numbers (although it is sorted by result size). It only shows the range of values in a given result set (which as far as I can tell we don’t show anywhere else on the site). With the legend, someone might, for example, see that, ‘oh, Queen’s University is represented here’, which they wouldn’t (easily) see if Queen’s had a very small bubble. It could provoke interesting questions for certain people.

Sorry, I meant the total number of degrees. For me, this is just a repetition of what you should see in the bubbles. So it is the same information for the same example you give...

The legend shows (directly and immediately, without having to hover over all the bubbles) all the institutions that have at least one result for the given search. The bubbles don’t do that - you’d have to hover over every single bubble (that doesn’t show the label) to figure out which universities had results, and even then that doesn’t have the same effect as seeing all the universities together in a list.

Same goes for the degrees - if I noticed that a result set had a thesis with an ’sjd’ degree, I might find that interesting and want to dig into that (but wouldn’t have known about the ’sjd’ degree without the legend - and indeed, this did pique my curiousity, so I checked, and an SJD is a Doctor of Juridical Science, considered the ‘most advanced law degree', offered by some law schools, including U of T)

This might also then make a case for including degrees as a search option, e.g., show me all theses written for an sjd (which is in fact exactly what I would now liked to have searched for).

I could also imagine someone asking, “Give me the list of universities that have published theses written about velodromes", the answer to which I see from the bubble legend is “McGill, UBC, Memorial, and Alberta” (and again, I don’t think I can get that list any other way from this site. Could do a SPARQL query, but that might be beyond many people).

Would this be the case of someone typing “velodrome” in the query organized by institution?

No, that would only return results for the selected institution. It wouldn’t show you (in a single clear simple list) all the institutions that have published theses that involve velodromes.

The value of the legend for end users would be an interesting question to put to test users, with a kind of A/B test, but in the interest of diminishing time, I defer to Sharon.

Based on information design principles and a lot of research done in the matter (e.g. E.Tufte) I’m convinced that we don’t need legends if the visualizations work properly

For interest sake, here’s a screenshot (hopefully it makes it in through the email) of the bubbles for all theses (i.e., when invoking an empty search):

why do we need to quantify the degrees in bubbles in the first place? Redundancy is not a big problem, that’s why having a list of all degrees next to the visualization is not a big deal, unless it affects the visualization. If we recall correctly, there was no “Degrees” visualization in the original design for the same line of reasoning.

On Sep 19, 2020, at 1:59 PM, James Chartrand notifications@github.com wrote:

On Sep 19, 2020, at 3:28 PM, Carlos Fiorentino notifications@github.com wrote:

On Sep 19, 2020, at 12:23 PM, James Chartrand notifications@github.com wrote:

I think it's because the legend boxes are the same colour as the bubbles, so they blend in.

I agree. However, even with different color keys the mix with bubbles is not beneficial if it compromises the reading. It is a limitation of the visualization.

I guess when the visualization is used as intended, i.e., with different colours for each bubble, this isn’t so much of a problem, although it would still be a problem if it happened that a legend entry overlapped its own bubble. Bit of an oversight in the visualization package I guess, although maybe they just didn’t think it was so bad with one overlapping entry.

The legend is clearly something we don’t need.

The value of the legend is that it immediately shows all values (university names or degree names) in the result set, which some people could find useful. Legends on bubble charts are fairly common.

I could probably add an option, like a button, or a toggle, to hide the legend on demand.

As always, I defer to Sharon.

We need the visualizations to work for us (and the users) and not the other way round.

I could allocate more of the screen to the legend which might stop the overlap, although it would make the bubbles smaller. Shall I try that?

I would not compromise the main visualization for the sake of the legend. Can the legend be moved somewhere else? (e.g. to the bottom) or make it not visible at all?

On Sep 19, 2020, at 2:13 PM, Sharon Farnel notifications@github.com wrote:

@jchartrand https://github.com/jchartrand just noticed an issue with the legend getting cut off (or hidden behind a bubble)when there are many degree options. for example, doing a search for mental health results in this:

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/4697932/93686129-6c184600-fa71-11ea-9f64-c533052b6caf.png — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695339947, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAEFSXKRR6D7VMXTJL7HU4LSGTYC5ANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695341131, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AGFMUPMHCN6YZ4WORO2JVZDSGTZLXANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695347567, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAEFSXLJCDX3TVOQHTQ3QMTSGUA63ANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695350314, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AGFMUPMR7FHJUVIHL3XOJEDSGUERLANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695351675, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAEFSXPCTQ4KZPUBNO6XJXLSGUGKLANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695354801, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AGFMUPM5KVWIQG72JKZHEWTSGUKSXANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695365725, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAEFSXJXISEFSRTFIEYR4BDSGU3DTANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

[sfarnel]

@jchartrand does this look workable?

[CarlsoFiorention]

On Sep 19, 2020, at 5:22 PM, James Chartrand notifications@github.com wrote:

On Sep 19, 2020, at 7:11 PM, Carlos Fiorentino notifications@github.com wrote:

On Sep 19, 2020, at 2:50 PM, James Chartrand notifications@github.com wrote:

On Sep 19, 2020, at 4:14 PM, Carlos Fiorentino notifications@github.com wrote:

I disagree, the purpose of a good visualization is being self explanatory. Legends are only useful for complex visualizations (not our case), they should only help to navigate the visualization and not conveying data. If we need the legend to show the total numbers by degree,

The legend doesn’t show any numbers (although it is sorted by result size). It only shows the range of values in a given result set (which as far as I can tell we don’t show anywhere else on the site). With the legend, someone might, for example, see that, ‘oh, Queen’s University is represented here’, which they wouldn’t (easily) see if Queen’s had a very small bubble. It could provoke interesting questions for certain people.

Sorry, I meant the total number of degrees. For me, this is just a repetition of what you should see in the bubbles. So it is the same information for the same example you give...

The legend shows (directly and immediately, without having to hover over all the bubbles) all the institutions that have at least one result for the given search. The bubbles don’t do that - you’d have to hover over every single bubble (that doesn’t show the label) to figure out which universities had results, and even then that doesn’t have the same effect as seeing all the universities together in a list.

That’s why I remarked the need of having labels on top or next to the bubbles, it is a limitation of the visualization not an advantage of the legend, we should have a better alternative bubble viz rather than adding a legend

Same goes for the degrees - if I noticed that a result set had a thesis with an ’sjd’ degree, I might find that interesting and want to dig into that (but wouldn’t have known about the ’sjd’ degree without the legend - and indeed, this did pique my curiousity, so I checked, and an SJD is a Doctor of Juridical Science, considered the ‘most advanced law degree', offered by some law schools, including U of T)

This might also then make a case for including degrees as a search option, e.g., show me all theses written for an sjd (which is in fact exactly what I would now liked to have searched for).

I could also imagine someone asking, “Give me the list of universities that have published theses written about velodromes", the answer to which I see from the bubble legend is “McGill, UBC, Memorial, and Alberta” (and again, I don’t think I can get that list any other way from this site. Could do a SPARQL query, but that might be beyond many people).

Would this be the case of someone typing “velodrome” in the query organized by institution?

No, that would only return results for the selected institution. It wouldn’t show you (in a single clear simple list) all the institutions that have published theses that involve velodromes.

I typed a keyword in the query and the bubbles show all the institutions with theses with that keyword, is that correct? If so, its not clear what do we need a list...

The value of the legend for end users would be an interesting question to put to test users, with a kind of A/B test, but in the interest of diminishing time, I defer to Sharon.

Based on information design principles and a lot of research done in the matter (e.g. E.Tufte) I’m convinced that we don’t need legends if the visualizations work properly

For interest sake, here’s a screenshot (hopefully it makes it in through the email) of the bubbles for all theses (i.e., when invoking an empty search):

why do we need to quantify the degrees in bubbles in the first place? Redundancy is not a big problem, that’s why having a list of all degrees next to the visualization is not a big deal, unless it affects the visualization. If we recall correctly, there was no “Degrees” visualization in the original design for the same line of reasoning.

On Sep 19, 2020, at 1:59 PM, James Chartrand notifications@github.com wrote:

On Sep 19, 2020, at 3:28 PM, Carlos Fiorentino notifications@github.com wrote:

On Sep 19, 2020, at 12:23 PM, James Chartrand notifications@github.com wrote:

I think it's because the legend boxes are the same colour as the bubbles, so they blend in.

I agree. However, even with different color keys the mix with bubbles is not beneficial if it compromises the reading. It is a limitation of the visualization.

I guess when the visualization is used as intended, i.e., with different colours for each bubble, this isn’t so much of a problem, although it would still be a problem if it happened that a legend entry overlapped its own bubble. Bit of an oversight in the visualization package I guess, although maybe they just didn’t think it was so bad with one overlapping entry.

The legend is clearly something we don’t need.

The value of the legend is that it immediately shows all values (university names or degree names) in the result set, which some people could find useful. Legends on bubble charts are fairly common.

I could probably add an option, like a button, or a toggle, to hide the legend on demand.

As always, I defer to Sharon.

We need the visualizations to work for us (and the users) and not the other way round.

I could allocate more of the screen to the legend which might stop the overlap, although it would make the bubbles smaller. Shall I try that?

I would not compromise the main visualization for the sake of the legend. Can the legend be moved somewhere else? (e.g. to the bottom) or make it not visible at all?

On Sep 19, 2020, at 2:13 PM, Sharon Farnel notifications@github.com wrote:

@jchartrand https://github.com/jchartrand just noticed an issue with the legend getting cut off (or hidden behind a bubble)when there are many degree options. for example, doing a search for mental health results in this:

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/4697932/93686129-6c184600-fa71-11ea-9f64-c533052b6caf.png — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695339947, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAEFSXKRR6D7VMXTJL7HU4LSGTYC5ANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695341131, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AGFMUPMHCN6YZ4WORO2JVZDSGTZLXANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695347567, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAEFSXLJCDX3TVOQHTQ3QMTSGUA63ANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695350314, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AGFMUPMR7FHJUVIHL3XOJEDSGUERLANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695351675, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAEFSXPCTQ4KZPUBNO6XJXLSGUGKLANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695354801, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AGFMUPM5KVWIQG72JKZHEWTSGUKSXANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695365725, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAEFSXJXISEFSRTFIEYR4BDSGU3DTANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695366432, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AGFMUPKOSI2DVVJNJ3W44CLSGU4LBANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

[jchartrand]

@sfarnel

From the Protovis site:

"Protovis is no longer under active development.

The final release of Protovis was v3.3.1 (4.7 MB). The Protovis team is now developing a new visualization library, D3.js, with improved support for animation and interaction. D3 builds on many of the concepts in Protovis; for more details, please read the introduction and browse the examples."

The bubble library I've been using is built with D3.js (the replacement to Protovis). We could build our own D3.js visualization, and probably do all sorts of things with it, but it would take a lot more time than we have. Building a visualization (even with D3.js) would be a project in its own right.

But, the picture you showed has no legend, which maybe suggests you don't want the legend. If so, I can easily remove the legend we have now. I've only been trying to describe what we'd lose by taking the legend out, but the decision about whether it stays or goes isn't mine to make.

[jchartrand]

On Sep 19, 2020, at 7:33 PM, Carlos Fiorentino notifications@github.com wrote:

On Sep 19, 2020, at 5:22 PM, James Chartrand notifications@github.com wrote:

On Sep 19, 2020, at 7:11 PM, Carlos Fiorentino notifications@github.com wrote:

On Sep 19, 2020, at 2:50 PM, James Chartrand notifications@github.com wrote:

On Sep 19, 2020, at 4:14 PM, Carlos Fiorentino notifications@github.com wrote:

I disagree, the purpose of a good visualization is being self explanatory. Legends are only useful for complex visualizations (not our case), they should only help to navigate the visualization and not conveying data. If we need the legend to show the total numbers by degree,

The legend doesn’t show any numbers (although it is sorted by result size). It only shows the range of values in a given result set (which as far as I can tell we don’t show anywhere else on the site). With the legend, someone might, for example, see that, ‘oh, Queen’s University is represented here’, which they wouldn’t (easily) see if Queen’s had a very small bubble. It could provoke interesting questions for certain people.

Sorry, I meant the total number of degrees. For me, this is just a repetition of what you should see in the bubbles. So it is the same information for the same example you give...

The legend shows (directly and immediately, without having to hover over all the bubbles) all the institutions that have at least one result for the given search. The bubbles don’t do that - you’d have to hover over every single bubble (that doesn’t show the label) to figure out which universities had results, and even then that doesn’t have the same effect as seeing all the universities together in a list.

That’s why I remarked the need of having labels on top or next to the bubbles, it is a limitation of the visualization not an advantage of the legend, we should have a better alternative bubble viz rather than adding a legend

As always, if you have a better vis, point me to it. I suspect, though, that any visualization would have trouble showing all the labels next to bubbles when there are a lot of small bubbles.

Same goes for the degrees - if I noticed that a result set had a thesis with an ’sjd’ degree, I might find that interesting and want to dig into that (but wouldn’t have known about the ’sjd’ degree without the legend - and indeed, this did pique my curiousity, so I checked, and an SJD is a Doctor of Juridical Science, considered the ‘most advanced law degree', offered by some law schools, including U of T)

This might also then make a case for including degrees as a search option, e.g., show me all theses written for an sjd (which is in fact exactly what I would now liked to have searched for).

I could also imagine someone asking, “Give me the list of universities that have published theses written about velodromes", the answer to which I see from the bubble legend is “McGill, UBC, Memorial, and Alberta” (and again, I don’t think I can get that list any other way from this site. Could do a SPARQL query, but that might be beyond many people).

Would this be the case of someone typing “velodrome” in the query organized by institution?

No, that would only return results for the selected institution. It wouldn’t show you (in a single clear simple list) all the institutions that have published theses that involve velodromes.

I typed a keyword in the query and the bubbles show all the institutions with theses with that keyword, is that correct? If so, its not clear what do we need a list...

The list (legend) shows all the universities at once (without having to methodically click on all the bubbles without labels).

The value of the legend for end users would be an interesting question to put to test users, with a kind of A/B test, but in the interest of diminishing time, I defer to Sharon.

Based on information design principles and a lot of research done in the matter (e.g. E.Tufte) I’m convinced that we don’t need legends if the visualizations work properly

For interest sake, here’s a screenshot (hopefully it makes it in through the email) of the bubbles for all theses (i.e., when invoking an empty search):

why do we need to quantify the degrees in bubbles in the first place? Redundancy is not a big problem, that’s why having a list of all degrees next to the visualization is not a big deal, unless it affects the visualization. If we recall correctly, there was no “Degrees” visualization in the original design for the same line of reasoning.

On Sep 19, 2020, at 1:59 PM, James Chartrand notifications@github.com wrote:

On Sep 19, 2020, at 3:28 PM, Carlos Fiorentino notifications@github.com wrote:

On Sep 19, 2020, at 12:23 PM, James Chartrand notifications@github.com wrote:

I think it's because the legend boxes are the same colour as the bubbles, so they blend in.

I agree. However, even with different color keys the mix with bubbles is not beneficial if it compromises the reading. It is a limitation of the visualization.

I guess when the visualization is used as intended, i.e., with different colours for each bubble, this isn’t so much of a problem, although it would still be a problem if it happened that a legend entry overlapped its own bubble. Bit of an oversight in the visualization package I guess, although maybe they just didn’t think it was so bad with one overlapping entry.

The legend is clearly something we don’t need.

The value of the legend is that it immediately shows all values (university names or degree names) in the result set, which some people could find useful. Legends on bubble charts are fairly common.

I could probably add an option, like a button, or a toggle, to hide the legend on demand.

As always, I defer to Sharon.

We need the visualizations to work for us (and the users) and not the other way round.

I could allocate more of the screen to the legend which might stop the overlap, although it would make the bubbles smaller. Shall I try that?

I would not compromise the main visualization for the sake of the legend. Can the legend be moved somewhere else? (e.g. to the bottom) or make it not visible at all?

On Sep 19, 2020, at 2:13 PM, Sharon Farnel notifications@github.com wrote:

@jchartrand https://github.com/jchartrand just noticed an issue with the legend getting cut off (or hidden behind a bubble)when there are many degree options. for example, doing a search for mental health results in this:

https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/4697932/93686129-6c184600-fa71-11ea-9f64-c533052b6caf.png — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695339947, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAEFSXKRR6D7VMXTJL7HU4LSGTYC5ANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695341131, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AGFMUPMHCN6YZ4WORO2JVZDSGTZLXANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695347567, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAEFSXLJCDX3TVOQHTQ3QMTSGUA63ANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695350314, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AGFMUPMR7FHJUVIHL3XOJEDSGUERLANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695351675, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAEFSXPCTQ4KZPUBNO6XJXLSGUGKLANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695354801, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AGFMUPM5KVWIQG72JKZHEWTSGUKSXANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695365725, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAEFSXJXISEFSRTFIEYR4BDSGU3DTANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695366432, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AGFMUPKOSI2DVVJNJ3W44CLSGU4LBANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695367188, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAEFSXJO6YXKHBMAXPNIR2LSGU5WFANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

[sfarnel]

Thanks both for the discussion. If the legends can be removed from the institution and degree visualizations without (potentially) causing extreme code maintenance issues then let's go ahead and remove them for now.

[jchartrand]

Done.

On Sep 20, 2020, at 9:52 PM, Sharon Farnel notifications@github.com wrote:

Thanks both for the discussion. If the legends can be removed from the institution and degree visualizations without (potentially) causing extreme code maintenance issues then let's go ahead and remove them for now.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jchartrand/can-link/issues/47#issuecomment-695869623, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAEFSXNRUAI5LEMOUJMXNHDSG2WVRANCNFSM4RSD7Y4A.

[sfarnel]

Looks good. Closing issue