Tomás Almeida e Silva Martins Alves

Área: Engenharia Informática e de Computadores

Despacho de Nomeação do Júri

Título da Tese: "Towards Personality-Aware Information Visualization Systems"

Local da Prova: https://videoconf-colibri.zoom.us/j/96647035306

Data: 18/04/2023

Hora: 15H00

Thesis Abstract: This thesis aims to understand if the inclusion of personality factors in the design process of information visualization systems can provide valuable insights into their development and improve human-computer interaction. Individual differences play an important role in human-computer interaction by shaping how users perceive and accept technology. Recent research on information visualization has shown how individual differences like personality mediate how users interact with visualization systems to counteract one-size-fits-all design approaches. However, most of these studies focus on visualization settings where users perform a series of analytical analyses. In addition, past research constantly tackles a particular subset of personality constructs. Therefore, there are untapped relevant visualization use scenarios and personality factors that can potentially provide new findings and inform the design of user-centered visualization systems. In this dissertation, we contribute to the state-of-the-art by studying the use of personality factors in visualization design in three distinct scenarios. We begin by analyzing how a construct such as personality should be used to tailor user preferences collection for visualization features. Then, we propose and evaluate design guidelines to improve user interaction with visualization systems tailored for personality profiles. Results suggest that individuals generally prefer a visualization system designed for them. We continue by studying the trust-building process with visualization. We tackle two different uses of visualization techniques and evaluate how personality manifests in the visualization trustworthiness assessment. Facets of the neuroticism, conscientiousness, and agreeableness traits show key synergies in the trust assessment of several visualization techniques and user interaction. Next, we approach the decision-making field by focusing on the role of personality factors in the susceptibility to the priming effect with visualization systems. Our findings suggest that the anchoring and framing biases are generally resilient to the neuroticism and locus of control traits. However, the external dimensions of the locus of control hint toward susceptibility to the priming effect. In conclusion, we validate our thesis. We provide useful insights regarding the impact of personality factors in the studied settings. In particular, we show that the conscientiousness trait affects user preferences for the aesthetics of a visualization system. We also found that the trusted facet transfers its effects to a visualization-based trust-building process. Moreover, facets of the neuroticism and conscientiousness traits dictate how users perceive and interact in these scenarios. Finally, we highlight how individuals are generally resilient to the priming effect but that the external dimensions of the locus of control may play a minor part in this phenomenon.