Incidental Versus Ambient Visualizations: Comparing Cognitive and Mechanical Tasks

Incidental visualizations allow individuals to access information on-the-go, at-a-glance, and without needing to con-sciously search for it. Unlike ambient visualizations, incidental visualizations are not fixed in a specific location and only appear briefly within a person's field of view while they are engaged in a primary task. Despite their potential, incidental visualizations have not yet been thoroughly studied in current literature. We conducted exploratory research to establish the distinctiveness of incidental visualizations and to advocate for their study as an independent research topic. We tested both incidental and ambient visualizations in two separate studies, each involving one specific scenarios: a cognitively demanding primary task (42 participants), and a mechanical primary task (28 participants). Our findings show that in the cognitively demanding task, both types of visualizations resulted in similar performance. However, in the mechanical task, ambient visualizations led to better results compared to incidental visualizations. Based on these results, we argue that incidental visualizations should be further explored in scenarios involving physical requirements, as these situations present the greatest challenges for their intearation.