Visual Analytics can be seen as an integral approach combining visualization, human factors, and data analysis. The figure illustrates the research areas related to Visual Analytics. Besides visualization and data analysis, especially human factors, including the areas of cognition and perception, play an important role in the communication between the human and the computer, as well as in the decision-making process. With respect to visualization, Visual Analytics relates to the areas of Information Visualization and Computer Graphics, and with respect to data analysis, it profits from methodologies developed in the fields of information retrieval, data management & knowledge representation as well as
data mining.