Reaction: Distributed Cognition as a Theoretical Framework for Information Visualization

The authors of this article make some interesting points about distributed cognition in relation to information visualization. Although I see the reasons why DCog should be an important part of InfoViz research, I believe that their statements about implementing the DCog theoretical framework into HCI research is more important.

I agree that systems should have measurable metrics that allow us to determine a system's usefulness. The authors make it seem that it is nearly impossible to come up with standard guidelines that can be used among different systems. If these standards were to be achieved, would results be consistent after repeating test trials using different people?

Overall, I think that the DCog framework for developing InfoViz systems is a good step toward standardizing the field. It provides a different perspective on the evaluation of tools created in the InfoViz field.