Matthias Kraus

Alexandra Diehl, Matthias Kraus, Alfie Abdul-Rahman et al.

Visualization guidelines, if defined properly, are invaluable to both practical applications and the theoretical foundation of visualization. In this paper, we present a collection of research activities for studying visualization guidelines according to Grounded Theory (GT). We used the discourses at VisGuides, which is an online discussion forum for visualization guidelines, as the main data source for enabling data-driven research processes as advocated by the grounded theory methodology. We devised a categorization scheme focusing on observing how visualization guidelines were featured in different threads and posts at VisGuides, and coded all 248 posts between September 27, 2017 (when VisGuides was first launched) and March 13, 2019. To complement manual categorization and coding, we used text analysis and visualization to help reveal patterns that may have been missed by the manual effort and summary statistics. To facilitate theoretical sampling and negative case analysis, we made an in-depth analysis of the 148 posts (with both questions and replies) related to a student assignment of a visualization course. Inspired by two discussion threads at VisGuides, we conducted two controlled empirical studies to collect further data to validate specific visualization guidelines. Through these activities guided by grounded theory, we have obtained some new findings about visualization guidelines.

Matthias Miller, Hanna Schäfer, Matthias Kraus et al.

In this position paper, we frame the field of Visual Musicology by providing an overview of well-established musicological sub-domains and their corresponding analytic and visualization tasks. To foster collaborative, interdisciplinary research, we discuss relevant data and domain characteristics. We give a description of the problem space, as well as the design space of musicology and discuss how existing problem-design mappings or solutions from other fields can be transferred to musicology. We argue that, through methodology transfer, established methods can be exploited to solve current musicological problems and show exemplary mappings from analytics fields related to text, geospatial, time-series, and other high-dimensional data to musicology. Finally, we point out open challenges, discuss research gaps, and highlight future research opportunities.

Matthias Miller, Johannes Häußler, Matthias Kraus et al.

In this paper, we postulate that combining the domains of information visualization and music studies paves the ground for a more structured analysis of the design space of music notation, enabling the creation of alternative music notations that are tailored to different users and their tasks. Hence, we discuss the instantiation of a design and visualization pipeline for music notation that follows a structured approach, based on the fundamental concepts of information and data visualization. This enables practitioners and researchers of digital humanities and information visualization, alike, to conceptualize, create, and analyze novel music notation methods. Based on the analysis of relevant stakeholders and their usage of music notation as a mean of communication, we identify a set of relevant features typically encoded in different annotations and encodings, as used by interpreters, performers, and readers of music. We analyze the visual mappings of musical dimensions for varying notation methods to highlight gaps and frequent usages of encodings, visual channels, and Gestalt laws. This detailed analysis leads us to the conclusion that such an under-researched area in information visualization holds the potential for fundamental research. This paper discusses possible research opportunities, open challenges, and arguments that can be pursued in the process of analyzing, improving, or rethinking existing music notation systems and techniques.