What this publication covers
Reviews how the literature defines insight in visual-analytics sessions. Mapping interpretations from correlations to hypotheses and moments of understanding, the article organizes recurring themes and suggests ways to align visualization tools with different conceptions of insight.
How this reference can help
Build an initial body of knowledge and locate key debates about methodological choices and research quality.
Curated by Ricardo Martins
View the original abstract 🇺🇸 🇬🇧
Insights are often considered the ideal outcome of visual analysis sessions. However, there is no single definition of what an insight is. Some scholars define insights as correlations, while others define them as hypotheses or aha moments. This lack of a clear definition can make it difficult to build visualization tools that effectively sup- port insight discovery. In this paper, we contribute a comprehensive literature review that maps the landscape of existing insight defini- tions. We summarize key themes regarding how insight is defined, with the goal of helping readers identify which definitions of insight align closely with their research and tool development goals. Based on our review, we also suggest interesting research directions, such as synthesizing a unified formalism for insight and connecting the- ories of insight to other critical concepts in visualization research.