FIGURE 1.
| VISUALIZATION STRATEGIES IN SECURITY ANALYSIS___ school of information 649 : information visualization fall 1998 |
INTERFACE FEATURES
The user interface has been designed to allow the user sophisticated control over the display while keeping complexity and clutter to a minimum. Towards this end it exhibits some of the maxims of information design guru Edward Tufte, such as eliminating all extraneous visual elements and unintended visual interactions (so-called "1+1=3" effects), while preserving an extremely high level of data density.
The tight coupling aspect of dynamic querying is activated with a right-click of the mouse, which should help prevent accidental reconfigurations of the search criteria.
Rolling over individual bars causes the fundamental data associated with that security to be displayed within the detail window.
FIGURE 1. |
The fundamental selection panel serves as both a legend for the bar colors and a selector to turn each fundamental on or off. Selectively "building" the bars allows the user to better understand the constituent elements of each stock's systematic risk profile. The colors for each bar are allocated automatically from a pre-defined optimal color palette, but can be assigned manually to compensate for color blindness or individual taste. This is done by clicking on the color swatch, which brings up a color chooser.
 FIGURE 2. |
A number of different sliders allow the user to set the desired search criteria and control other aspects of the display. The sliders are very minimal, with values being expressed redundantly through both a highlight color (red) and a heavier weight line. Numeric values float above the slider control point and update dynamically as the slider is manipulated.
Directional sliders allow the user to define a search criterion in the form of "greater than n" or "less than n", giving them the flexibility to pursue a broad array of strategies. Directionality is set by clicking on the appropriate arrow.
 FIGURE 3. |
Multi-sliders allow the user to define linear boolean searches. Control points can be dragged on and off of the slider, as with tab stops in many word processing applications.
 FIGURE 4. |
Fisheye characteristics are evident in several aspects of the interface. Many of the sliders are not strictly linear, but rather reflect the degree of interest the user is likely to have in different possible values. For example, the beta slider increases rapidly from 1 to infinity, reflecting the belief that an investor is unlikely to differentiate between a P/E multiple of 100 and one of 1000 (not out of the question today with unbelievable internet stock valuations and IPO fever!). See figure 3.
A fisheye approach is also evident in the labeling of chronological sliders: times in the recent past are labeled exactly with an exact date, with those in the more distant past labeled only with the month and year, and even further into the past simply with the year. See figures 5,6.
One goal of our visualization was that it be longitudinal in nature, in that analysis is done not simply upon the values of various criteria right now, but those values over a specified window of time. Several interface elements support this type of analysis. The criteria fulfillment slider allows the user to introduce an approximation factor, by for example requiring that to remain highlighted a stock must have satisfied the given searh criteria for 85% of the time throughout the chronological window specified.
 FIGURE 5. |
The checkbox associated with each criterion allows the user to selectively ignore that criterion if it isn't thought to be relevant.See figure 5.
The volatility of space display is also longitudinal in that it gives the user a feel for what percentage of the stock space has satisified the given criteria over time. In the example shown here, currently (the far right-hand side of the display), approximately 20% of listed stocks fulfill the criteria selected with the sliders. It functions as a graphical slider as well, allowing the user to visualize the space at any historical point.
 FIGURE 6. |
The two arrows at the origin of the graph axes allows the user to vertically scale the bar chart, in order to inspect detail or better compare relative bar sizes.
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