KNOWLEDGE VISUALIZATION: A CONCEPT, FRAMEWORK, AND EXAMPLE

Visualization as an information-delivery technology has been widely deployed to support tasks in science, business, engineering, travel, and medical fields. It has been highly regarded for supporting business intelligence that is based on a large quantity of data. There are many visualization studies that investigated various aspects of the technology, however, few studies have considered the effects of domain knowledge on users’ comprehension of visualization. This paper discusses challenges facing visualization technologies and proposes a knowledge visualization concept. Based on the Theory of Graph Construction and the Theory of Graph Comprehension, this study proposes a research framework to envision a holistic strategy of incorporating domain knowledge into visualization to facilitate visualization design and comprehension. This paper illustrates FYI Corporation’s product as a successful example of knowledge visualization. Implications for researchers and practitioners in the field are presented.