EVL alumnus Khairi Reda presents his research at EVL tech meeting:
Friday, November 3, 2023, 12PM - 1PM
EVL Continuum, Room 2068 ERF

Towards Trustworthy Visual Analytics
Abstract: Interactive visualization tools, such as Tableau, Jupyter notebooks, and R with ggplot, have become vital instruments in the data science ecosystem. These systems empower users to explore data and search for new patterns that might lead to insights. However, these tools can also expose analysts to noise and random data fluctuations. Analysts can frequently misinterpret these spurious patterns and mistake them for reliable effects. This phenomenon has led to a “replication crisis,” with many previously published results failing to replicate, eroding trust in the scientific process.

In this talk, Reda will discuss his research on reducing the risk of spurious visualizations and describe techniques we have developed to operationalize analyst hypotheses and beliefs in the visual analytics process. Empirical results showing that these unobtrusive interactions can promote good analytical practices and reduce the incidence of false discoveries will be discussed. Finally, Reda will show how using visual inference as a benchmark can provide a complementary account of visualization utility, leading to new insights into visualization design beyond what can be learned from traditional “graphical perception” studies.

Bio: Khairi Reda is an Associate Professor in the Luddy School of Informatics & Computing at Indiana University Indianapolis. He is an alumnus of EVL, having earned a PhD in CS from the University of Illinois at Chicago. His research employs a variety of methods, weaving together techniques from human-computer interaction, machine learning, and design thinking to investigate new approaches for visualizing and interacting with data.