IEEE VIS 2024 Content: Design Patterns in Right-to-Left Visualizations: The Case of Arabic Content

Design Patterns in Right-to-Left Visualizations: The Case of Arabic Content

Muna Alebri - University College London, London, United Kingdom. UAE University , Al Ain, United Arab Emirates

Noëlle Rakotondravony - Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, United States

Lane Harrison - Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, United States

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Room: Bayshore VI

2024-10-17T14:15:00ZGMT-0600Change your timezone on the schedule page
2024-10-17T14:15:00Z
Exemplar figure, described by caption below
Data visualizations from two articles available in Arabic and other left-to-right languages. The bar chart shows categorical data points that are non-ordinal (source: Inkyfada). The line chart shows ordered data points, its x-axis represents time sequence. Both charts are mirrored and their orientation follows the direction of the article language, i.e. from right to left for Arabic and left to right for English. The position of the logo of the journal, and the mention of the data source are also mirrored when switching between visualization in RTL and LTR languages.
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Keywords

Design Patterns, Right-To-Left Visualizations, Data Journalism

Abstract

Data visualizations are reaching global audiences. As people who use Right-to-left (RTL) scripts constitute over a billion potential data visualization users, a need emerges to investigate how visualizations are communicated to them. Web design guidelines exist to assist designers in adapting different reading directions, yet we lack a similar standard for visualization design. This paper investigates the design patterns of visualizations with RTL scripts. We collected 128 visualizations from data-driven articles published in Arabic news outlets and analyzed their chart composition, textual elements, and sources. Our analysis suggests that designers tend to apply RTL approaches more frequently for categorical data. In other situations, we observed a mix of Left-to-right (LTR) and RTL approaches for chart directions and structures, sometimes inconsistently utilized within the same article. We reflect on this lack of clear guidelines for RTL data visualizations and derive implications for visualization authoring tools and future research directions.