Data visualizations allow information to be transmitted to users. In order to explore and understand the data, it is often necessary for users to manipulate the display of this data. When manipulating the visualization, visual transitions are necessary to avoid abrupt changes in this visualization, and to allow the user to focus on the graphical object of interest. These visual transitions can be coded as an animation, or techniques that link the data across several displays. The first aim of this thesis was to examine the benefits and properties of animated transitions used to explore and understand large quantities of multidimensional data. In order to do so, we created a taxonomy of existing animated transitions. This taxonomy allowed us to identify that no animated transition currently exists that allows the user to control the direction of objects during the transition. We therefore proposed an animated transition that allows the user to have this control during the animation. In addition, we studied an animated transition technique that uses 3D rotation to transition between visualizations. We identified the advantages of this technique and propose an improvement to the current design. The second objective was to study the visual transitions used in the Air Traffic Control domain. Air Traffic Controllers use a number of visualizations to view vast information which is duplicated in several places: the Radar screen, the strip board, airplane lists (departures/arrivals) etc. Air traffic controllers perform visual transitions as they search between these different displays of information. We studied the way animations can be used in the Air Traffic Control domain by implementing a radar image prototype which combines three visualizations typically used by Air Traffic Controllers.
Exploration and Exploitation of the design space of animated transitions in Information Visualization