Bilgi görselleştirme tekniklerinin yazilim kullanilabilirligi açisindan degerlendirilmesi

Information visualization is the use of computer-based, interactive visual representations of data to amplify cognition. It also aims to make large amounts of data easy to understand. It includes abstract tasks such as being understandable for users and decision making based on knowledge. There are a great number of data visualization techniques defined in literature. A successful visualization made by using these techniques enables more efficient usage of software systems in many areas. In this study, an evaluation method is presented for the measurement of usability that is one of the most significant factors affecting the success of information visualization. In this method which belongs to the heuristic evaluation methods in literature, visualizations are evaluated by usability experts using certain heuristic sets. A web based application which supports the evaluation method, was developed to apply the evaluation easily. In order to test the described method and the application, 21 usability experts have evaluated the usability of an example visualization through the developed application. According to the obtained results, major usability problems in the application have been revealed. It may enhance the usability, that is one of the software quality characteristics, by eliminating the revealed problems by the help of visualization designers.