Seeing what is not shown: Combining visualization critique and design to surface the limitations in data

Hengesbach, Nicole; McInerny, Greg J.; Albuquerque, João Porto de

doi:10.1075/idj.22006.hen

Article published In:

Information Visualization
Edited by Isabel Meirelles, Marian Dörk and Yanni Loukissas
[Information Design Journal 27:1] 2022
► pp. 64–75

Seeing what is not shown

Combining visualization critique and design to surface the limitations in data

Nicole Hengesbach | University of WarwickCoventry

Greg J. McInerny | University of WarwickCoventry

João Porto de Albuquerque | University of Glasgow

Critical studies of data visualization often highlight how the reductive nature of visualization methods excludes data limitations and qualities that are crucial to understanding those data. This case study explores how a data visualization could express contingent, situated, and contextual facets of data. We examine how such data limitations might be surfaced and represented within visualizations through an interplay between the critique of an existing data visualization and the development of alternative designs. Based on a case study of urban tree data, we interrogate data limitations in relation to four different types of missingness: Incompleteness, Emptiness, Absence, and Nothingness. Our study enables reflections on how data limitations can be investigated using visualizations and considers the development of a critical visualization practice.

Keywords: critical visualization, critique, urban data, visualization design, data studies

Article outline

1.Background
2.Case study: An urban tree map
3.Methodology
4.Exploring missingness
- 4.1In/completeness
- 4.2Emptiness
- 4.3Absence
- 4.4Nothingness
5.Conclusion
Acknowledgements
References

Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 7 November 2022

https://doi.org/10.1075/idj.22006.hen

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