This talk introduces a design method built on three concepts: The cognitive thread, interaction and the visual query. The cognitive thread refers to the sequence in which ideas occur and what determines this sequence. When we watch a compelling visual presentation, our attention is being carefully lead by the presenter so that the patterns we see and the words we hear lead us to a series of planned conclusions; the presenter is controlling the thread of our cognition. When we explore a static data visualization we are (mostly) cognitively in the driver’s seat, we set the goals and control the cognitive thread. We decide which information leads to follow. When we explore data interactively we intermittently give control to the computer and let a piece of software control the thread. In this case the cognitive thread is distributed, as in a conversation between two people. A visual query is a visual pattern search designed to advance an analysis. Visual queries are embedded in the cognitive process, the results of a pattern search will often alter the cognitive thread. In this talk, I will argue that a way of optimizing graphic design (how data is transformed to graphical marks) is to optimize for visual queries. A way of optimizing the design of an interactive visualization system is to think of the best division of cognitive labor between human analysis and computer calculations and how the transitions between them can be achieved through user interactions.

Director of the Data Visualization Research Lab. Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping, University of New Hampshire, NH, U.S.

Communities are swimming in data—demographic data, participation data, government data, social media data—but very few understand what to do with it. Though governments and foundations are creating open data portals and corporations are creating APIs, these rarely focus on use, usability, building community or creating impact. So although there is an explosion of data, there is a significant lag in data literacy at the scale of communities and individuals. This creates a situation of data-haves and have-nots. But there are emerging technocultural practices that combine participation, creativity, and context to connect data to everyday life. These include citizen science, data journalism, novel public engagement in government processes, and participatory data art. This talk surveys these practices both lovingly and critically, including their premises, aspirations and the challenges to creating citizens that are truly empowered with data.

Assistant Professor of Civic Media and Data Visualization Storytelling, Journalism Department, Emerson College, Boston, MA, U.S. Research Affiliate, MIT Media Lab Center for Civic Media, Cambridge, MA, U.S.

Data are local: made by people and their dutiful machines, at a time, in a place, with the instruments at hand, using limited resources, to reach disciplined audiences. Although they are reliably transferred across digital communication networks, everywhere data remain marked by local artifacts: traces of the conditions and values that are particular to their origins. Even big data—a term that valorizes the scale and perceived autonomy of today’s data practices—are no more than aggregations of local knowledge, grounded in and inseparable from their social and material beginnings. This paper argues that we should learn to look at big data as data aggregates: collections of local data with varied and discordant infrastructural ties. In other words, if we are to fully understand the opportunities and pitfalls of big data, we must begin to see both the forest and the trees.

Assistant Professor of Digital Media, School of Literature, Media and Communication. Georgia Institute of Technology, United States

How do we read pie charts? Look at any number of books, and they will tell you that we look at the central angle of a slice. That is important, because it means that removing the center (like in a donut chart) will lead to less accuracy. But it's not true. And worse, this question hasn't been studied since 1926 – ninety years ago! We have recently conducted experiments to look into how we actually read pie charts. We designed deconstructed charts – only angle, only arc length, or only area (and also some combinations) –, and asked people to tell us what value they thought they represented. Angle alone turned out to be the least reliable, producing the largest error. Area and arc length are at least as important. This talk will present our results and discuss design implications for things like exploded pie charts and other variations that are common in information graphics.

R. Kosara: Senior Research Scientist, Tableau Software, United States

D. Skau: Program Manager, ScribbleLive, United States

Project Ukko is a visualisation interface developed as a part of a design study on potential applications of seasonal to decadal (S2D) climate predictions, that presents a novel solution to the informational challenge of putting probabilistic information into usable form for decision makers in industry. In Project Ukko, an information-rich, highly scannable interactive map represents prediction skill, wind speed, and change in wind speed in multi-dimensional glyphs; and a novel visual device (probability cone) communicates distributions of probabilistic prediction values. This interactive visualisation enhances the accessibility and readability of the latest advances in seasonal wind speed predictions developed through the RESILIENCE prototype of EUPORIAS, a project aiming to increase the resilience of society to climate change by supporting the emergence of a S2D climate services sector. Here, we account for the design decisions, and an extensive process of domain characterisation, through which the domain and problem came into focus.

D. Hemment: University of Dundee, United Kingdom

M. Stefaner: Data visualisation designer, Germany

S. Makri, and J. Dykes: City University, United Kingdom

C. Buontempo: Met Office, United Kingdom

I. Christel, V. Torralba, N. Gonzalez-Reviriego: Barcelona Supercomputing Center, Spain

F. Doblas-Reyes: Barcelona Supercomputing Center and Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats, Spain

Contemporary information and wayfinding design often disregard the changing personal circumstances and mental state of the user. This paper explores concepts and methodologies in user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) design to increase retention and memorisation through a focus on the recipients’ individual context, mental state and abilities. In an emergency, visual perception and situation awareness may be restricted due to the impact of sensory symptoms (panic, tunnel vision or limited motor skills), thus calling for a linear course of action to enable the user to concentrate at the task at hand. An applied research project will be shown as an exploration of these issues. Floodscape is a mobile application designed to educate its user about inundation zones resulting from a tsunami in their communities.

Senior Tutor Visual Communication Design, School of Design, College of Creative Arts, Massey University, New Zealand

The Anti-Eviction Mapping Project shows how visualization practice operates within networks and assemblages and attest to how visualizations are more than artifacts. To analyze this premise a framework will be derived from a bridging of actor-network theory with assemblage theory. We will see how visualizations are productions that involve affect, performance and multiplicity as well as cognitive and material dimensions. It will be argued that this way of describing visualizations offers a rich framework to look at info viz in general and critical visualization practice in particular. As a result, through this analysis, critical visualization practice will be presented as a practice that attends to the human and nonhuman connections made in the visualization process.

Image Credit: Anti-Eviction Mapping Project – Narratives of Displacement and Resistance (image used with permission by the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project) (http://www.antievictionmappingproject.net/narratives.html, accessed February 10, 2016)

Assistant Professor, Faculty of Design, OCAD University, Canada

In this study I am looking into representative information design materials that were produced in the XIX century in Mexico when the railway system began its construction. It starts from the previous ways of transportation, such as the Mexican litera (bed) and the carriages, the first train inaugurated in 1873 that ran from Mexico City to Veracruz, and the extension of the system throughout the country. The study explores three main facets: why the railway changed people’s perception of time and space; the railway as a promoter of tourism; and the organization of graphic materials that workers created for the archive which now houses 214,000 documents. The archive includes construction plans and maps, machinery building specifications and other descriptions. Various information design materials will be presented, such as maps, bridges construction plans, training manuals, first printed guided tours, and train passes.

Professor-researcher, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Cuajimalpa, Mexico

Contemporary philosophers like Bruno Latour and Peter Sloterdijk see design as “drawing together.” A process of combining the already existing and by doing so creating something new. Once the design process is thought as such a synthesis, it can be regarded as a network connecting materials, knowledge and tools but also generations, groups, individuals and frames of references. Throughout multiple projects I have been capturing and collecting my steps from first sketches to the final visualization showing how these networks form. One of the insights which emerge by showing this processes is how human-made these diagrams are. Visualizations are not truthful representations of reality but rather cultural artefacts which reflect the tools which we are using to create them but to a greater extent they show our world views that we convey through these images. The process of mapping, projecting and scaling does not have one optimal approach but rather many equal approaches with different viewpoints.

Visualization researcher & information designer, Center for Complex Network Research, Northeastern University, United States

As cultural institutions are digitizing their assets, great opportunities emerge to engage with cultural content through novel means. However, it is the often comprehensive and complex nature of collections that can make it difficult to gain a sense of overview and orientation. We present the outcomes of two design studies, one engaging with an aggregated collection from diverse cultural institutions, and the other focusing on the specific features of a collection of school books. Both design studies involved iterative design processes with the collection owners leading to prototypical implementations of multiple aesthetically and interactively coordinated visualizations. The resulting representations are experimental, yet playful overviews of the temporal and spatial distribution of objects and the associated topics, people, and organizations. In our presentation we discuss our method of involving collection owners into the design process, present the diverse resulting interactive visualizations, and discuss the two information architectures integrating the multiple views.

University of Applied Sciences Potsdam, Germany

With newsroom transitioning towards digital and 24-hour operations, there is increasing pressure to publish more and publish fast. The shift to mobile platforms confronts designers with limited display sizes and changing audience behavior. Consequently, journalists and newsroom developers often reject more sophisticated, information-dense, and interactive data visualizations in favor to quicker-to-produce static content forms. What might have been designed as interactive, animated visualization three years ago is now a simple list of static, annotated images, embedded in text. Why should newsroom developers test custom software on dozens of devices and platforms on deadline, when they can just publish images? This talk walks through the situation of interactive data visualization in the news today.

New York Times graphics editor, NY, U.S.