Interactive visualization modeling with CoDe: an application to entomological data

A taxonomy of typical interaction techniques is proposed in, where seven categories of information visualizations provided by commercial systems are considered. This framework gives an initial foundation toward a deeper understanding of interaction in Information Visualization, helping discussion and evaluation of interaction techniques. In this chapter we propose a methodology for the specification and design of complex interactive visualizations as an extension of the graphic language CoDe . Based on the seven categories introduced in, we add new interaction operators to CoDe, to enable a visualization designer to specify multiple perspectives of a data set, without losing the underlying mental map of the considered information. The new version of CoDe allows to manage some interaction techniques which are difficult to classify and do not quite fit into any of the categories above. Some applications of the proposed methodology to design interactive visualizations of entomological data are provided as a case study.