Studying Parallel Coordinates Under Varying Aspect Ratios

Abstract

In constraint layout environments like dashboards and multi-view applications, designers have less freedom in selecting the correct aspect ratios for plots. Especially for web-based, responsive dashboards, designers have little to no control over the layout and size of the presented plots. The effect of aspect ratios on the readability of line charts and scatter plots has already been studied. However, more evidence is needed for parallel coordinates, where line slopes indicate correlations between variables. This paper presents a first step towards understanding the effect of aspect ratios on the readability of parallel coordinates. We present a statistical analysis of aspect ratio effects and summarize the results of a quantitative user study on user literacy under different aspect ratios. The statistical analysis revealed that angle parameters stay more homogeneous when changing the plot size in case landscape orientation is used. The user study showed that human observers perform well when judging correlation based on the angles under differences between plot width and height.