IEEE VIS 2024 Content: "It's a Good Idea to Put It Into Words": Writing 'Rudders' in the Initial Stages of Visualization Design

"It's a Good Idea to Put It Into Words": Writing 'Rudders' in the Initial Stages of Visualization Design

Chase Stokes - UC Berkeley, Berkeley, United States

Clara Hu - Self, Berkeley, United States

Marti Hearst - UC Berkeley, Berkeley, United States

Room: Bayshore II

2024-10-17T16:00:00ZGMT-0600Change your timezone on the schedule page
2024-10-17T16:00:00Z
Exemplar figure, described by caption below
Main findings from two interview studies. Right: number of participants who currently use writing in visualization design, and with what frequency, in each design step. Both Study 1 and Study 2 found that visualization designers rarely use writing as a concrete design step. Left: Four types of writing rudders tested in Study 2, participants ratings of each type, and examples of participant-written rudders.
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Keywords

Visualization, design, language, text

Abstract

Written language is a useful tool for non-visual creative activities like composing essays and planning searches. This paper investigates the integration of written language into the visualization design process. We create the idea of a 'writing rudder,' which acts as a guiding force or strategy for the designer. Via an interview study of 24 working visualization designers, we first established that only a minority of participants systematically use writingto aid in design. A second study with 15 visualization designers examined four different variants of written rudders: asking questions, stating conclusions, composing a narrative, and writing titles. Overall, participants had a positive reaction; designers recognized the benefits of explicitly writing down components of the design and indicated that they would use this approach in future design work.More specifically, two approaches - writing questions and writing conclusions/takeaways - were seen as beneficial across the design process, while writing narratives showed promise mainly for the creation stage. Although concerns around potential bias during data exploration were raised, participants also discussed strategies to mitigate such concerns. This paper contributes to a deeper understanding of the interplay between language and visualization, and proposes a straightforward, lightweight addition to the visualization design process.