A study of directing attention and engagement in the low-level human visual system. Attention attracts a viewer's focus, and engagement encourages them to linger and draw in details. Although we know how to focus visual attention, engagement is less well understood. We are studying the use of aesthetics to engage viewers by designing painterly visualizations with increased aesthetics in areas containing important data. The goal is a visualization that presents insights in a perceptually effective manner.

• Impressionism-inspired data visualizations are both functional and liked
• Engaging viewers through nonphotorealistic visualizations
• Perceptually based brush strokes for nonphotorealistic visualization