Data Visualization in Society

Magdalena Boucher Luiz Morais Fateme Rajabiyazdi + 18 lainnya

15 Agustus 2023

This paper is a call to action for research and discussion on data visualization education. As visualization evolves and spreads through our professional and personal lives, we need to understand how to support and empower a broad and diverse community of learners in visualization. Data Visualization is a diverse and dynamic discipline that combines knowledge from different fields, is tailored to suit diverse audiences and contexts, and frequently incorporates tacit knowledge. This complex nature leads to a series of interrelated challenges for data visualization education. Driven by a lack of consolidated knowledge, overview, and orientation for visualization education, the 21 authors of this paper—educators and researchers in data visualization—identify and describe 19 challenges informed by our collective practical experience. We organize these challenges around seven themes People, Goals & Assessment, Environment, Motivation, Methods, Materials, and Change. Across these themes, we formulate 43 research questions to address these challenges. As part of our call to action, we then conclude with 5 cross-cutting opportunities and respective action items: embrace DIVERSITY+INCLUSION, build COMMUNITIES, conduct RESEARCH, act AGILE, and relish RESPONSIBILITY. We aim to inspire researchers, educators and learners to drive visualization education forward and discuss why, how, who and where we educate, as we learn to use visualization to address challenges across many scales and many domains in a rapidly changing world: viseducationchallenges.github.io.

Paul C. Parsons

17 Agustus 2021

Professional roles for data visualization designers are growing in popularity, and interest in relationships between the academic research and professional practice communities is gaining traction. However, despite the potential for knowledge sharing between these communities, we have little understanding of the ways in which practitioners design in real-world, professional settings. Inquiry in numerous design disciplines indicates that practitioners approach complex situations in ways that are fundamentally different from those of researchers. In this work, I take a practice-led approach to understanding visualization design practice on its own terms. Twenty data visualization practitioners were interviewed and asked about their design process, including the steps they take, how they make decisions, and the methods they use. Findings suggest that practitioners do not follow highly systematic processes, but instead rely on situated forms of knowing and acting in which they draw from precedent and use methods and principles that are determined appropriate in the moment. These findings have implications for how visualization researchers understand and engage with practitioners, and how educators approach the training of future data visualization designers.

Petra Isenberg K. Marriott J. Stasko + 3 lainnya

1 Maret 2020

The visualization research community can and should reach broader audiences beyond data-savvy groups of people, because these audiences could also greatly benefit from visual access to data. In this article, we discuss four research topics—personal data visualization, data visualization on mobile devices, inclusive data visualization, and multimodal interaction for data visualization—that, individually and collaboratively, would help us reach broader audiences with data visualization, making data more accessible.

Zezhong Wang Lovisa Sundin Dave Murray-Rust + 1 lainnya

18 Januari 2020

This paper introduces the concept of 'cheat sheets' for data visualization techniques, a set of concise graphical explanations and textual annotations inspired by infographics, data comics, and cheat sheets in other domains. Cheat sheets aim to address the increasing need for accessible material that supports a wide audience in understanding data visualization techniques, their use, their fallacies and so forth. We have carried out an iterative design process with practitioners, teachers and students of data science and visualization, resulting six types of cheat sheet (anatomy, construction, visual patterns, pitfalls, false-friends and well-known relatives) for six types of visualization, and formats for presentation. We assess these with a qualitative user study using 11 participants that demonstrates the readability and usefulness of our cheat sheets.

Bongshin Lee Kathleen F. McCoy Edward Cutrell + 6 lainnya

27 April 2021

driven communication by business, government, and science. Furthermore, the use and need for visualizations is not just confined to data experts: Data visualizations are becoming ubiquitous in textbooks, presentations, and reports, as well as in popular media, both online and in print. The design of these visualizations, however, is premised on implicit assumptions about the reader's sensory, cognitive, and motor abilities. People without these abilities are ultimately disenfranchised, and access to the benefits of data visualization and to the underlying information is limited. Data visualizations, such as statistical charts, diagrams, and maps, are an effective means to represent, analyze, and explore data as well as identify and communicate insights. They take advantage of the human visual system’s high bandwidth, parallel processing, and ability to quickly recognize patterns. For instance, a table of numbers may be hard to understand, while those same numbers shown in a graphic form (such as a line chart) will immediately reveal a steadily increasing trend. For these reasons, interactive data visualization is central to both exploratory data analysis and dataD Insights → Lack of accessible access to data visualizations is a significant equity issue. → It's not only visual impairments that can restrict access but also other kinds of disabilities including cognitive and learning disabilities, and motor disabilities. → Overcoming this challenge requires visualization practitioners, visualization and accessibility researchers, and the relevant disability communities to work together.