A Design Study Process Model for Medical Visualization

Abstract: We introduce a design study process model for medical visualization based on the analysis of existing medical visualization and visual analysis works, and our own interdisciplinary research experience. With a literature review of related works covering various data types and applications, we identify features of medical visualization and visual analysis research and formulate our model thereafter. Compared to previous design study process models, our new model emphasizes: distinguishing between different stakeholders and target users before initiating specific designs, distinguishing design stages according to analytic logic or cognitive habits, and classifying task types as inferential or descriptive, and further hypothesis-based or hypothesis-free based on whether they involve multiple subgroups. In addition, our model refines previous models according to the characteristics of medical problems and provides referable guidance for each step. These improvements make the visualization design targeted, generalizable, and operational, which can adapt to the complexity and diversity of medical problems. We apply this model to guide the design of a visual analysis method and reanalyze three medical visualization-related works. These examples suggest that the new process model can provide a systematic theoretical framework and practical guidance for interdisciplinary medical visualization research. We give recommendations that future researchers can refer to, report on reflections on the model, and delineate it from existing models.