Visualization of Age Distributions as Elements of Medical Data-Stories
This work addresses the need to improve health communication for a broad audience by enhancing the design of medical visualizations, though it is incremental as it builds on existing narrative visualization methods.
This study tackled the problem of presenting age distributions of diseases effectively in medical communication by testing three pictogram variants in narrative visualizations, finding that annotations were most effective for comprehension and aesthetics, while bar charts were preferred for engagement and other variants for memorability, based on evaluations with 72 participants and expert reviews.
In various fields, including medicine, age distributions are crucial. Despite widespread media coverage of health topics, there remains a need to enhance health communication. Narrative medical visualization is promising for improving information comprehension and retention. This study explores the most effective ways to present age distributions of diseases through narrative visualizations. We conducted a thorough analysis of existing visualizations, held workshops with a broad audience, and reviewed relevant literature. From this, we identified design choices focusing on comprehension, aesthetics, engagement, and memorability. We specifically tested three pictogram variants: pictograms as bars, stacked pictograms, and annotations. After evaluating 18 visualizations with 72 participants and three expert reviews, we determined that annotations were most effective for comprehension and aesthetics. However, traditional bar charts were preferred for engagement, and other variants were more memorable. The study provides a set of design recommendations based on these insights.