Purposeful Visualization

In spite of rapid and many advances in the field of visualizations there are still fundamental problems that beset it. We propose the concept of purposeful visualization (PV) as a means of addressing the key problems by highlighting the importance of purpose and context when we consider, design, use, and evaluate visualizations. PVs fulfill a particular purpose for one or more stakeholders within a certain context. The key objectives of our research were to explore and understand purposeful and beautiful visualizations, formalize a definition of such purposeful visualizations that will enable us to explore this concept further, design and implement a system to explore, analyze and evaluate PVs and finally propose a taxonomy and a model of PVs to support the design and evaluation of PVs.