Information+
Conference 2023

The presentation is about the visualisation of science in information books for young people. It will include images of Marie Neurath’s ‘colour books for children’ published by Max Parrish between the end of the 1940s and the 1970s. It suggests that the way Marie Neurath explained complex information through charts and diagrams might be applied today to help children to understand issues key to a sustainable future.

Marie Neurath (Reidemeister) worked with Otto Neurath to develop Isotype (International System of Typographic Education) in 1920s Vienna. The terms ‘transformer’ and ‘transformation’ were originally used in Vienna by the Neuraths to describe the process that today many of us would describe as information design. After Otto’s death in 1945 Marie applied the Isotype method and system to explanations about science in books for young people. She and her team combined ‘experience of a special kind of teaching, research and highly organised design’.

Data literacy is an increasingly important skill for society as it enables people to understand, evaluate and effectively use data to interpret, analyze and communicate information. In this sense, higher education institutions have updated their curricular structures to incorporate Data Visualization. This includes courses and faculties in the scientific area of Communication that do not necessarily offer basic knowledge in related areas such as Design or Statistics. By default, these are students trained in oral and written communication skills, across different media, but with limited skills in data collection, analysis and visualization. In this presentation, we will share a three-step methodology called CAD (Context, Application and Challenge) with the description of strategies and practices used to teach data visualization to non-designers. Based on sharing experiences at a Communications faculty in Portugal over the past three years, we propose a reflection on how we should adapt teaching techniques and methods for non-designers and take advantage of the opportunities that this difference in backgrounds can provide.

How does one become a Data Visualization in News Media? Nineteen interviews with industry professionals show it is mainly through self-teaching. Chartbites aims to fill the knowledge gaps that data journalists, graphic reporters, and infographic designers feel. This project results from a Ph.D. research that focuses on developing sustainable workflows for Newspapers and Magazine professionals, which have ventured heavily into digital reporting in recent decades.

By working directly with users, we designed a three-part pedagogically-driven project composed of a book, videos, and workshops. Each part explores critical thinking, the design process, and a taste of theory and history—all content derived from interests proposed by the interviewees. Chartbites exists to incite questioning and dialogue, exercise designerly ways of producing visualizations, and highlight information of historical or ethical bearing.  Its purpose is not to substitute higher education but to share knowledge for highly busy yet eager DataViz professionals in News media.

This presentation delves into 'Poetic Data', an undergraduate course taught at the School of Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University in Spring 2023. It focused on the intersection of data visualization and art within the realm of immersive media, with a specific focus on augmented reality (AR). The presentation entails course design, outcomes, acquired knowledge, and reflective insights.

In the class, we explored the creative implementation of AR in data and storytelling, showcasing its transformative potential in this dynamic intersection of technology and creativity. This pilot class functioned as a testing ground for innovative tools and learning methodologies, with the prospect of being incorporated into subsequent semesters. The course design was guided by two inquiries. How does AR enhance data visualization and storytelling, and what tools and techniques can be used effectively in this context? What theoretical understanding and practical skills do students need to design AR experiences with data?

When I teach students about visualizations, I might begin with a very broad definition: data visualizations are a consistent mapping between data values and visual components. This broad definition certainly encompasses the kinds of charts and graphs which first come to mind when imagining a visualization, but what about memes which borrow the language of data visualization to talk about dating people with particular astrological signs (e.g., in a pie chart)? Drawing from Feminist scholar Sara Ahmed’s work on use and queer use, in this presentation I will argue that representing data visually is a required, but not sufficient, condition for something to be considered a “data visualization.” I will offer data visualization memes as a case study to explore the complexity of defining what a visualization is based on how it is (intended to be) used and propose that both intended and queer uses are worth studying.

The central theme of the presentation titled "Anthropological mapping in information visualization. Case study: Iconographic record of the geek, drag, and cholombiana youth cultures in Monterrey" is the use of anthropological mapping and information visualization techniques to explore and depict the geek, drag, and cholombiana youth cultures in Monterrey. The presentation focuses on creating iconographic records that capture the characteristics, expressions, and symbolism of these cultures, and how this information can be visualized and analyzed to gain a better understanding of their dynamics and meanings within an anthropological context.

In the dynamic world of data visualization, diverse paths often converge to create captivating narratives. Alenka and Matthias, once biochemists turned data visualization professionals, share their transformative journeys. Making the switch to dataviz from being academic fellows in Sweden, they talk about their paths when their passions for visualization ignited. Alenka's fascination with molecular intricacies pushed her beyond traditional charts, merging her love for molecular structures with artistic visualization. Matthias, on the other hand, found his passion during his postdoc tenure in Stockholm, using data art to communicate complex information effectively. Their stories reveal shared enthusiasm for impactful visualizations, bridging scientific exploration and community engagement. Regardless of their academic origins, their journeys underscore the power of pursuing true passions. In this presentation, we explore Alenka and Matthias' parallel experiences, celebrating diverse paths into data visualization. We invite the community to reflect on their unique journeys for shared understanding and discovery.

Visitors of the 2023 info+ website became part of a visualization that showed user traces on the website. In the physical world, traces of people are everywhere — broken twigs as evidence of a new path in the forest, graffiti tags on public restrooms, or a light shine on walls where naturally oily hands touched the surface. Intentional or not, a person’s interaction with their environment becomes part of that environment. As ubiquitous as material traces are, visual digital traces remain surprisingly bare. Our experiment is an impulse towards using digital traces as design material in visualization: They blur the boundaries between visualization authors and readers; complicate questions surrounding authorship and agency; change the ways in which visualizations are read; and trouble the notion of participation in personalized data displays.

This presentation reports on the preliminary results and discussion of the CHI 2023 “Data as a Material for Design” workshop. The workshop attracted 34 submissions and 38 multi-disciplinary participants. The workshop consisted of activities that engendered discourse that palpated the edge of our understanding of data and its properties as a material for design. This included two asynchronous pre-workshop events, populating a spectrum ranging from conventional to evocative with examples of works that engage with data, and responding to four pre-set questions; two free-flowing sessions in which grouped participants discussed their submissions as well as synthesising the material from the asynchronous events into previously “unknown” questions. The participants then organised themselves around these questions for a craft-based activity where they expressed their responses through physicalised concepts. These included data masks, representations of data through time, and a performative piece entitled “data tracer”.

Participatory approaches have been successful in giving underrepresented actors a voice, and thus result in a more inclusive story. A speaking example is citizen science, in which the audience is invited to participate in scientific studies by contributing data, which often form the base of a news story item. Yet how to make the participation part of the actual data storytelling is still unclear. We will give an overview of how different levels of participation can be embedded within the narrative structure of data stories. Together with Belgian journalists and media professionals, we collected examples that can be implemented in newsrooms today, such as existing inspiring news items that combine reporting citizen science results with call-to-actions to contribute data or stand-alone scrollytellings that require data input from the user. These examples with limited requested contribution by the audience serve as a stepping stone to other, more elaborated participatory data story formats, such as open game worlds as Minecraft in which children collaboratively create a story that integrates data visualisation of air pollution or a real-life physical installation to invite humans to contribute birth dates of their loved ones and memories of that day in relation to weather data. We will present these examples in an interactive, participatory way.

Skilled designers are able to make instrumental judgments about which tools and methods are appropriate for given situations—including the discernment of when to use them, under what conditions, and in which ways they should be extended, modified, or created to fit the situation. Because judgment making is personal and situated, there have been few attempts by researchers to study the formation and development of instrumental judgments in data visualization education and practice. In this talk, I will introduce some vocabulary on design judgment, share data from an ongoing study of data visualization practitioners, and discuss challenges for knowledge sharing between researchers and practitioners. Researchers will learn about the nature of design practice including strategies for engaging in practice-led research. Practitioners will learn concepts that may sensitize them to aspects of their practice and help them reflect on the nature of their own processes and methods.

Many members of the Information+ community have engaged in interdisciplinary participatory visualization design in the past and more will do so in the future. Interdisciplinary collaboration is more difficult without a common language to talk about participatory visualization design. Understanding how potential collaborative partners think and communicate about participatory visualization design will make future collaborations more enjoyable and productive.

I present results from a mini-literature review that shows how authors from different backgrounds (including healthcare, human-computer interaction, visualization, and design) write about co-designing health information visualizations with and for older adults.

Attendees will learn what draws different researchers, designers and stakeholders to participatory visualization design, as well as the common challenges and benefits of such approaches. Attendees will have the opportunity to reflect on their own practices in participatory visualization design and understand how their perspectives might interact with the perspectives of their potential collaborators.

We co-constructed a data physicalization called "Wound Up in a Pandemic", with locals at a community arts centre. Local community perceptions about data visualizations are little explored in the field. Therefore, we designed a data physicalization as an active participatory design approach for public engagement to explore community interactions with data. We placed a wooden frame in a public gallery, and together with the visitors, added national survey data about people’s trust in information about COVID-19. Participants could optionally add anonymous nationwide data or their own responses to the survey by weaving 1-5 loops of yarn around six wooden posts that represented different information sources. Through observations and interviews with participants, we learned about personal and community perceptions of the data physicalization in the context of people’s daily lives, histories and cultures. Our exploration revealed the potential of data physicalization as an active community experience for research and design.