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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

ORCID logo | University of Warwick
| University of Warwick
| 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
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/idj.22006.hen
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