The CAPED Framework: Characterizing User Skills in Chart Authoring through the Lens of Tasks and Tools
Authors
Bongshin Lee (Yonsei University), Zhicheng Liu (University of Maryland College Park), John R Thompson (Autodesk Research), Chenglong Wang (Microsoft Research)
Presentation
- Session
- How can I do this myself?
- Time
- Thursday, Nov 12, 09:00 – 09:12 (US/Eastern) · session 08:00 – 09:30
- Location
- Hall America center
Keywords
Skill, chart authoring
Abstract
In this paper, we introduce a new framework for characterizing the user skills required for chart authoring. Despite growing attention to authoring systems, we lack a conceptual framework that characterizes the diverse and multifaceted skills involved and helps identify opportunities for system design and development. Our initial investigation revealed that skill is a complex and elusive concept, and that existing theories on skills from other disciplines are too high-level to capture the importance of tasks and tools in data visualizations. To address this gap, we formulate the CAPED framework that characterizes skill as the ability to create a chart involving five dimensions pertinent to tasks and tools: input data, output chart, paradigm, abstraction, and expression. We demonstrate the framework’s descriptive power by highlighting different skills involved in similar authoring situations and identifying the types of knowledge associated with chart authoring. We further present examples illustrating how the framework can be used to identify new research opportunities in supporting users with varying skills.
For Practitioners
By providing a common vocabulary for describing and comparing chart authoring skills, the CAPED framework helps visualization designers, developers, and educators identify skill requirements, uncover barriers to chart authoring, design more accessible tools, and develop effective training and evaluation materials.