These are some of the interesting points discussed during events I attended. They’re a bit sketchy as they’re meant more as reminders than full blown posts.

Scatterplot Matrix Navigation (Niklas Elmqvist et al)

This paper was the winner of the best paper award. I think it might resurrect some interest with matrix scatterplots, and I see potential of using concepts from here in my work. I love matrix views, so needless to say this was a very interesting take on it. Need to look into the paper in further detail though.

Interaction Costs of InfoVis (Heidi Lam)

Review of user studies related to interaction costs. Made some valid points on the importance of considering interaction features when evaluating systems. Importance of interaction not being a cost but an aid. Something else to think about during user studies.

Color in Information Displays (Maureen Stone)

Tutorial on usage of colour in displays. Reiteration and emphasis on Tufte's principle to DO NO HARM with color. Presented two interesting cases studies on how colour was designed for Tableau and voting Kiosks. The subtle details of the design dependent on the application requirements were well explained in the case studies. Interesting point to follow-up on was the relationship of colour and language. Other points:-

• Get it right in black and white - (Design Mantra)
• Ref to work by Cynthia Brewer Color Brewer
• Hand designing colour palettes vs Algorithmic generation in a color space
• Emphasis and usage illustration of the L* (LAB) color space

VAST Challenge Participants discussion (Georges Grinstein, Catherine Plaisant, Mark Whiting et al)

• Importance of creating data sets with ground truth.
• Possibility of automatically judging analytical tasks.
• Relevance of this area to an InfoVis Grand Challenge.