Cognition-informed Visualization Designs:
Belief Elicitation through Visual Channels
Objective:
To explore how visualizations can enhance belief elicitation by leveraging human visual-cognitive heuristics, aiming to create more intuitive, expressive, and user-centered interfaces for capturing attitudes and mental constructs in HCI.
Role:
Research Associate at Cognition and Visualization Lab at Emory (CAV Lab)
Timeline:
May 2024 - Dec. 2024
Collaborators:
Shiyao Li,
Roshini Deva,
Arpit Narechania,
Alireza Karduni,
Cindy Xiong Bearfield,
Emily Wall,
Research Overview
This study examines how visualizations can serve as intuitive tools for belief elicitation, offering a more expressive alternative to traditional text-based or numerical methods. To explore natural cognitive heuristics, we studied how individuals externalize their beliefs through visual channels, such as sketches and conceptual mapping. Through user studies, interviews, and thematic analysis, we identify recurring visual-cognitive schemas that inform the design of more effective visualization-based elicitation interfaces. My role included conducting qualitative research and prototyping visualization-based elicitation tools to improve usability and expressiveness.
Findings
Through thematic analysis, I and another author identified recurring visual-cognitive heuristics that participants intuitively used to externalize their beliefs. After iterative coding and author discussions, we developed a final codebook with an inter-rater reliability of 0.44, capturing key patterns in both textual and visual responses. Below are some example of the heuristics we found:
Facial Expressions
Diagrams
27 participants conveyed their attitudes through facial expressions, leveraging one of the most powerful non-verbal communication tools. Smiley faces were often used to indicate support for a topic, while fearful expressions conveyed concerns. One participant used a smiley face with a frown to express mixed feelings about vaccination—acknowledging its effectiveness while also hinting at discomfort
Diagrams were frequently used to depict causal relationships and attitudes towards complex topics. For example, one participant sketched a dollar sign connected to a smiling graduate, representing their belief in a positive correlation between education funding and academic success. Notably, diagrams appeared most often when participants were asked about perceived relationships, suggesting their use in visualizing cause-and-effect dynamics.
The Final Code Book
Proposed Visualization and Elicitation Interface Design
Our findings identified key visual representations used to express attitudes and beliefs. Attitudes were often depicted through symbols, facial expressions, and emotional associations, while relational beliefs followed structured formats like diagrams or equations to illustrate relationships. For complex ideas, some participants used visual narratives to convey reasoning. Additionally, the reliance on text for articulating nuanced perspectives suggests a gap in current visual elicitation techniques, presenting an opportunity for innovation in belief elicitation interfaces.
Building on these insights, we developed a series of visual elicitation prototypes informed by human visual-cognitive heuristics. Below are a few designs that I envisioned, prototyped using Figma, and iterated after usability testing, aiming to create intuitive and expressive visualization-based belief elicitation tools:
Impact
The proposed solutions successfully balanced customer needs for speed with Mercedes-Benz’s high-end brand positioning. Key outcomes included:
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Adoption of designs and campaigns for the 2024 Q4 cycle, aligning brand identity with user needs.
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Service retention for vehicles aged 4–10 years is projected to improve by 22%, reversing a multi-year decline.
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Enhanced customer satisfaction by addressing pain points in the Mercedes Me App and streamlining the service experience.
Reflection
This project deepened my understanding of how visualization, interface design, and cognition intersect to create intuitive and expressive user experiences. Exploring how people externalize beliefs reinforced my belief that effective design should align with human intuition, making technology more accessible and engaging.
I refined my interaction design and prototyping skills, using Figma and JavaScript to develop belief elicitation interfaces that balance expressiveness and analytical clarity. I also strengthened my qualitative research abilities, conducting interviews and thematic analysis to extract meaningful insights that shaped our designs.
Beyond technical skills, I learned how to bridge cognitive science and HCI principles with interface design. This experience reinforced my passion for human-centered design and the role of visualization in making complex information more intuitive and inclusive, which I aim to carry forward in my future research and design work.
Relational Diagram
Our study found that pictorial elements were frequently used to express attitudes and beliefs, contrasting with the abstract encodings used in traditional data visualization. While pictorials offer expressiveness, they pose challenges for structured analysis. To balance expressiveness and clarity, we explored designs based on diagrams, retaining visual richness while enhancing clarity and relational representation.
In our relational diagram interface design, users can drag and drop relational signs (equal, unequal, arrows, larger/smaller than) between two topics, such as vaccination and health, to visually express their beliefs. A slider adjusts the shade intensity, indicating the perceived strength of the relationship. This intuitive interface reduces cognitive load, making belief elicitation more accessible while allowing users to precisely convey both the strength and nature of relationships.
The aptitude of using faces to convey attitude was the most frequently used element in participants’ sketches. As one of the most powerful visual-cognitive schemas, facial expressions are central to conveying a wide array of emotions and intentions. The human brain has even developed specialized regions solely dedicated to processing facial expressions. Faces not only communicate basic emotions but also convey complex social and moral information.
Consequently, we propose developing a tool designed as a face with an adjustable grin to elicit users’ emotional attitudes. By dragging the grin—moving it towards a smile, frown, or neutral expression, users are provided more expressiveness to depict their attitudes. This approach not only enhances expressiveness but also simplifies analysis for researchers, providing a balance between detailed expression and analytical convenience.
Adjustable
Faces
Belief Elicitation
Through Visual Channels
Example of traditional elicitation techniques
Belief elicitation is widely used in psychology, education, and HCI to understand how individuals perceive and express their attitudes and mental models. In my initial literature review, I found that traditional methods, such as Likert scales and Sliders, often fail to capture the nuances and abstractiveness of people’s thought processes[1]. Further research suggests that humans naturally externalize beliefs through visual means, such as sketches and diagrams, making visualization a promising tool for more intuitive and expressive elicitation[2].
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A. Karduni, D. Markant, R. Wesslen, and W. Dou, “A Bayesian cognition approach for belief updating of correlation judgment through uncertainty visualizations,” IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, vol. 27, no. 2, pp. 978–988, 2020.
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N. Crilly, A. Blackwell, and P. Clarkson, “Graphic elicitation: using research diagrams as interview stimuli. qual res 6 (3): 341–366,” 2006.
Background
Impact
Our research is currently submitted under review for EuroVis(Eurographics Working Group on Data Visualization) 2025. The study introduces new ways to integrate belief elicitation with visualization, expanding the expressive range of user input beyond traditional text-based or numerical approaches. By leveraging visual-cognitive heuristics, our findings help researchers and designers develop more intuitive and engaging interfaces that align with users’ natural ways of externalizing thoughts. The proposed elicitation tools lower the cognitive barrier to expressing attitudes, making them more inclusive for users with diverse communication preferences. These insights have implications for user research, HCI, and accessibility, enabling human-factor-driven design that fosters richer, more meaningful interactions in decision-making, education, and research.
Visualizations work as cognitive interfaces, translating abstract mental models into structured representations that facilitate communication in HCI. By exploring visual-cognitive heuristics, we aim to design belief elicitation visualizations and interfaces that reduce cognitive load, enhance engagement, and improve expressiveness.
To investigate this, I led the analysis of how participants visually structured their beliefs through sketches and textual explanations. This qualitative study could inform alternative designs of visualization-based elicitation interfaces that align with users’ natural cognitive processes and improve the clarity and usability of visual feedback mechanisms.
Visualization as a Cognitive Interface
Conceptual mapping of visual elicitation interface.
Research Method
To explore how mental constructs like attitudes and beliefs are best visually represented, we focused on sketches and textual responses to explore visual-cognitive schemas in mental representations. Sketching, with its projective nature, allows researchers to tap into deeper and more intuitive layers of thought. Textual descriptions complement with additional context, connecting participants' representations to their social and cultural perspectives. By combining both approaches, we aimed to capture a comprehensive view of how individuals intuitively externalize their beliefs through visual channels.
We conducted a qualitative crowdsourced study where participants expressed their attitudes and beliefs on four complex topics: Vaccination, Education, Generative AI, and Transportation. Participants were asked to respond using both free-form drawings through a 1000 × 600 pixels canvas and open-ended text through text boxes to reflect their perspectives.
Using thematic analysis, I led the examination for the resulting sketches and textual responses to identify recurring visual-cognitive heuristics, which show patterns in how people naturally translate abstract beliefs into visual forms. These ranged from simple elements like faces and symbols to complex structures such as visualized narratives, diagrams, and mathematical representations. This analysis provided key insights into the intuitive ways individuals use visualization to externalize their internal thought processes, informing the design of belief elicitation interfaces.
Example of domains and prompts given to the participants
Example of instructions given to the participants for visual and texual responses