Graphical Perception of Icon Arrays versus Bar Charts for Value Comparisons in Health Risk Communication

Abstract: Visualizations support critical decision making in domains like health risk communication. This is particularly important for those at higher health risks and their care providers, allowing for better risk interpretation which may lead to more informed decisions. However, the kinds of visualizations used to represent data may impart biases that influence data interpretation and decision making. Both continuous representations using bar charts and discrete representations using icon arrays are pervasive in health risk communication, but express the same quantities using fundamentally different visual paradigms. We conducted a series of studies to investigate how bar charts, icon arrays, and their layout (juxtaposed, explicit encoding, explicit encoding plus juxtaposition) affect the perception of value comparison and subsequent decision-making in health risk communication. Our results suggest that icon arrays and explicit encoding combined with juxtaposition can optimize for both accurate difference estimation and perceptual biases in decision making. We also found misalignment between estimation accuracy and decision making, as well as between low and high literacy groups, emphasizing the importance of tailoring visualization approaches to specific audiences and evaluating visualizations beyond perceptual accuracy alone. This research contributes empirically-grounded design recommendations to improve comparison in health risk communication and support more informed decision-making across domains.