Repertory Grid Technique: a pragmatic approach to evaluating user experience in visualisation navigation

The aim of this study is to evaluate user experience of visualisation navigation by adopting a pragmatic approach. A pragmatic approach with the adoption of Repertory Grid Technique (RGT) reveals a different side of visualisation evaluation. Visualisation in past research has been studied through different theoretical lenses, discussed here under four headings: human cognition; technology interventions; data and information; and evaluation behaviours. From these four headings emerge objective and subjective user experience measurements. These insights have been used to demonstrate the implications of RGT and how it can generate valid data for analysing user experience. The findings elicited from 48 users demonstrate the contributions of the study specifically to evaluation approaches. The implications of RGT explored uncommon research paradigms in visualisation research, improvement in the elicitation method and extensions to the RGT, enhancing the research credibility. The outcomes derived from RGT were used as indicators to uncover user experience. These outcomes were: (1) the list of the hierarchical factors to evaluate user experience; (2) the potential implications for practice when designing visualisation navigation; and (3) the richness of the classification of visualisation navigation features generated by user experience. A comparison between the generated data and previous studies was used to demonstrate the impact on the research context. The main contributions of this research are fourfold. First, the research followed a pragmatic paradigm and adopted RGT, which is uncommon for visualisation research exploring users’ perceptions towards visualisation, and constitutes a methodological innovation. Second, it fills a gap in the theoretical basis of evaluating visualisation navigation based on user experience. It also articulates four lenses of past research: human cognition, technology interventions, data and information, and evaluation behaviours. Third, it determines the important elements of user experience towards visualisation. Fourth, the research bridges the gap between designers, users and academicians by exploring the visualisation phenomenon.