From "Arbitrary Timberland" To "Skyline Charts": Is Visualization At Risk From The Pollution of Scientific Literature?

In this essay, I argue that, while visualization research does not seem to be directly at risk of being corrupted by the current massive wave of polluted research, certain visualization concepts are being used in fraudulent fashions and fields close to ours are being targeted. Worse, the society publishing our work is overwhelmed by thousands of questionable papers that are being, unfortunately, published. As a community, and if we want our research to remain as good as it currently is, I argue that we should all get involved with our variety of skills to help identify and correct the current scientific record. I thus aim to present a few questionable practices that are worth knowing about when reviewing for fields using visualization research, and hopefully will never be useful when reviewing for our main venues. I also argue that our skill set could become particularly relevant in the future and invite scholars of the fields to try to get involved.

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Data Melodification FM: Where Musical Rhetoric Meets Sonification

We propose a design space for data melodification, where standard visualization idioms and fundamental data characteristics map to rhetorical devices of music for a more affective experience of data. Traditional data sonification transforms data into sound by mapping it to different parameters such as pitch, volume, and duration. Often and regrettably, this mapping leaves behind melody, harmony, rhythm and other musical devices that compose the centuries-long persuasive and expressive power of music. What results is the occasional, unintentional sense of tinnitus and horror film-like impending doom caused by a disconnect between the semantics of data and sound. Through this work we ask, can the aestheticization of sonification through (classical) music theory make data simultaneously accessible, meaningful, and pleasing to one's ears?

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Charts and Measures

alt.vis has gone mainstream. What else can be thought of a venue that has reached its fourth edition besides that is has become institutionalized? Enured to the real truths and harsh realities of the world surrounding us, alt.vis no longer has the aesthetic clarity or purity to conduct its much-needed work. To rectify this issue, we propose a new workshop housed within the alt.vis workshop entitled ``Charts and Measures’'—housed within the now-conventional alt.vis. To ensure the alternative integrity of this new venue, we limit submissions to only those approved to submit by the organizing committee, both of which are composed of Andrew McNutt. These proceedings include a range of topics, such as the inherent imperialism of some research fields, to quagmires we have found ourselves struggling through.

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Charts and Measures Explained

A Priest, a Rabbi, and an Atheist Walk Into an Error Bar: Religious Meditations on Uncertainty Visualization

In this provocation, we suggest that much (although not all) current uncertainty visualization simplifies the myriad forms of uncertainty into error bars around an estimate. This apparent simplification into error bars comes only as a result of a vast metaphysics around uncertainty and probability underlying modern statistics. We use examples from religion to present alternative views of uncertainty (metaphysical or otherwise) with the goal of enriching our conception of what kind of uncertainties we ought to visualize, and what kinds of people we might be visualizing those uncertainties for.

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The Feng Shui of Visualization: Design the Path to SUCCESS and GOOD FORTUNE

Superstition and religious belief system have historically shaped human behavior, offering powerful psychological motivations and persuasive frameworks to guide actions. Inspired by Feng Shui---an ancient Chinese superstition---this paper proposes a pseudo-theoretical framework that integrates superstition-like heuristics into visualization design. Rather than seeking empirical truth, this framework leverages culturally resonant (superstitious) narratives and symbolic metaphors as persuasive tools to encourage desirable design practices, such as clarity, accessibility, and audience-centered thinking. We articulate a set of visualization designs into a Feng Shui compass, reframing empirical design principles and guidelines within an engaing mythology. We present how visualization design principles can be intepreted in Feng Shui narratives, discussing the potential of these metaphorical principles in reducing designer anxiety, fostering community norms, and enhancing the memorability and internalization of visualization design guidelines. Finally, we discuss Feng Shui visualization theory as a set of cognitive shortcuts that can exert persuasive power through playful, belief-like activities.

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Theory is Shapes

Theory figures" are a staple of theoretical visualization research. Common shapes such as Cartesian planes and flowcharts can be used not only to explain conceptual contributions, but to think through and refine the contribution itself. Yet, theory figures tend to be limited to a set of standard shapes, limiting the creative and expressive potential of visualization theory. In this work, we explore how the shapes used in theory figures afford different understandings and explanations of their underlying phenomena. We speculate on the value of visualizing theories using more expressive configurations, such as icebergs, horseshoes, Möbius strips, and BLT sandwiches. By reflecting on figure-making’s generative role in the practice of theorizing, we conclude that theory is, in fact, shapes.

Data Alchemy 201: Glass Bead Games

In this paper, we present an approach to explore data and latent spaces by playing games on them, inspired by Herman Hesse's 1946 book "The Glass Bead Game" (GBG), which talks about a lineage of games that are played by making connections between ideas. We use vector embeddings to "glue" different datasets and provide semantic lattices on which games can be designed and played. Through a narrative exposition, we explain the fundamentals of our framework, showcase intermediary results, and discuss our long-term goals with this line of research. Fundamentally, we are still pursuing the same vision from the previous alt.vis papers, which is to look for meaningful semiotic structures within latent spaces, but in this time we propose a practical approach to get there based on visual analytics, games, and category theory. We provide reproducible instructions to bootstrap our approach on the Thompson Motif Index (a rich catalog of narrative motifs) and play card games with it using the Tarot minor arcana. In honor of the GBG, we frame them as "motif beads", and show the countless possibilities that they allow.

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Visiologus: Mysterious and Mythical Creatures from the World of Visualization

The World of Visualization is home to a dazzling array of unique and resplendent species. From small and simple to vast and complex, from those who delight a single person to those that capture the imaginations of thousands each day: there are endless niches, adaptations, and variations to celebrate and explore. This (satirical) text draws inspiration from bestiaries of the past to tell stories about visualization life forms both real and imagined as a means to inspire interest in the diversity of the World of Visualization and spur reflection on our relationship to it. In particular, this compendium contains examples from two groups of creatures in the World of Visualization: Mysterious Beasts (which we know little about, irrespective of their abundance in our world) and Mythical Beasts (which come alive in our actions and the stories we tell), with a focus on monsters related to information communication.

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Visualization Was Here: Reorienting Research When Visualizations Fade into the Background

Visualization research often centers on how visual representations generate insight, guide interpretation, or support decision-making. But in many real-world domains, visualizations do not stand out—they recede into the background, stabilized and trusted as part of the everyday infrastructure of work. This paper explores what it means to take such quiet roles seriously. Drawing on theoretical traditions from joint cognitive systems, naturalistic decision making, and infrastructure studies, I examine how visualization can become embedded in the rhythms of expert practice—less a site of intervention than a scaffold for attention, coordination, and judgment. I illustrate this reorientation with examples from mission control operations at NASA, where visualizations are deeply integrated but rarely interrogated. Rather than treat invisibility as a failure of design or innovation, I argue that visualization’s infrastructural presence demands new concepts, methods, and critical sensibilities. The goal is not to diminish visualization’s importance, but to broaden the field’s theoretical repertoire—to recognize and support visualization-in-use even when it fades from view.

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VisPubs Games: Joyful Discovery of Visualization Research(ers)

Many sophisticated tools exist to help researchers find the academic literature they are searching for, but what about finding work that you aren't looking for? We promote joyful discovery of visualization research through two games (Colon and Authored) available to play now at https://games.vispubs.com. We believe these games provide several benefits to the visualization research community. First, the joyful discovery of visualization research and researchers occurs because these games randomly select authors and publications, thus exposing players to research areas they may not typically engage with. Second, these games were made by visualization researchers for visualization researchers --- playing this game, sharing results with friends in person and online, has the potential to strengthen our academic community. Third, games centered around publication authors provide a passive way for academics to gain exposure within the community. Finally, we hope these games are simply fun to play. Try them now at games.vispubs.com.

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ArXiv

The Fuzzy Front Ends: Reflections on the Never-Ending Story of Visualization Co-Design

Co-design is an increasingly popular approach in HCI and visualization, yet there is little guidance on how to effectively apply this method in visualization contexts. In this paper, we visually present our experience of a two-and-a-half-year co-design project with the local arts community. Focusing on facilitating community exploration and sense-making around arts funding distribution, the project involved a series of co-design sessions between visualization researchers and members of the arts community. Through these iterative sessions, we built shared understanding and developed visualization prototypes tailored to community needs. However, the practice is far from complete, and we found ourselves continually returning to the ``fuzzy front end'' of the co-design process. We share this ongoing story through comic-style visuals and reflect on three fuzzy front ends that we encountered during the project. By sharing these experiences with the visualization community, we hope to offer insights that others can draw on in their own community-engaged co-design work.

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Toward Design Justice in Data Visualization: An Ojibwe Language and Medicine Wheel Approach for Designing Data Visualizations

We explore the role the Design Justice framework and movement might play in data visualization by demonstrating an Ojibwe language and Medicine Wheel approach to designing ecological data visualizations. The long-term goals are to reduce the barriers for Indigenous communities to participate in data-driven conversations and create a design space for tribal and non-tribal communities to converge for co-design activities. The design provocation described in this paper draws upon gradient design and the Ojibwe language to create culturally relevant visual encodings for analyzing wild rice data. We believe that ecological data visualizations designed in this way, grounded in design justice principles, can transform data analysis and discourse across ecological data stakeholder communities. Early feedback from Ojibwe community demonstrations suggests that orienting the data to concepts familiar to Ojibwe culture and traditions helps ground the data in context and provides opportunities for envisioning new ways to encode and interact with data.

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Investigating the Task Load of Investigating the Task Load in Visualization Studies

The NASA task load index (short: NASA-TLX) is a common metric to evaluate the workload of a user in a visualization study. Yet, it is rarely performed as initially intended, as the sources-of-workload evaluation is often omitted for various reasons. We conduct an online survey to investigate the task load of administering different versions of the NASA-TLX in a meta-study using the ReVISit framework. Our results show that it is not the slight increase in experiment time, but rather participants’ frustration with the procedure, that contributes to the slight increase in task load when using the full version of the TLX compared to using a shortened version. However, we also show that the full version can shine a different and more faceted light on workload by adding a personal dimension to the data. We propose that a compact version of the sources-of-workload questionnaire can mitigate both time loss and frustration for study participants, while still providing the same data as the original procedure. The online study can be found and interactively explored on https://dpahr.github.io/tlxtlx/, and the source for the study, as well as the code for our analysis, can be found on https://github.com/dpahr/tlxtlx/.

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ArXiv