Metrics for Reasoning About the Usability of Visualization Notations
medium.comReally interesting read.
Have you thought about how you might identify usability ‘gotchas’ in notation.
For example two similar visualization components where the property names for a similar concept differ. Eg `title` vs `name`
It's a good question! I think I'd look at this through the lens of the Cognitive Dimensions of Notations, specifically the dimensions of 'consistency' and 'viscosity' (i.e. is the same thing literally called `title` in one place in the API and `name` in another? how hard is it to change from using one component to another?) and/or 'closeness of mapping' (i.e. do domain experts call it `title` but it's `name` in the API?).
Our metrics would maybe capture some aspects of consistency/viscosity, because `title` and `name` would both count towards vocabulary size, and because the distance between specs would be higher if `title` routinely needs to be changed to `name` when iterating, but that's about it. I don't believe a metrics-based approach like ours can quantify much if any of 'closeness of mapping' because that mostly happens in people's heads, not in the source code itself :)