I. Vis design

1. Domain situation: who is the target user, their domain of interest, their question and their data
2. Abstraction: translate from specifics of domain to vocabulary of visualization
   1. What is shown? Data abstraction
   2. Why is the user looking at it? Task abstraction (Ex: high score movies)
3. Idiom = How is it shown?
   1. Visual encoding idiom: how to draw
   2. Interaction idiom: how to manipulate
4. Algorithm: efficient computation

II. Data abstraction (= WHAT)

Domain characterization

Who is the target user

• Details of an application domain
• Group of users, target domain, their question and their data
• Domain questions/ problems
• Same as in generic interaction design

Design Process

1. Characterize Domain Situation
2. Data and Task Abstraction
   1. Map Domain-Language data description to data abstraction = WHAT
   2. Map Domain-Language task to Abstract Task = WHY
3. Identify/Create Suitable Idiom/Technique = HOW
4. Identify/Create Suitable Algorithm

Data and Task Abstraction

• Map WHAT and WHY into generalized terms
• Identify tasks that user wish to perform or already do
• Find data types that will support those task