IEEE VIS 2024 Content: Visualising Lived Experience: Learning from a Master andAlternative Narrative Framing

Visualising Lived Experience: Learning from a Master andAlternative Narrative Framing

Mai Elshehaly - City, University of London, London, United Kingdom

Mirela Reljan-Delaney - City, University of London, London, United Kingdom

Jason Dykes - City, University of London, London, United Kingdom

Aidan Slingsby - City, University of London, London, United Kingdom

Jo Wood - City, University of London, London, United Kingdom

Sam Spiegel - University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Screen-reader Accessible PDF
Download preprint PDF

Room: Bayshore I

2024-10-14T12:30:00ZGMT-0600Change your timezone on the schedule page
2024-10-14T12:30:00Z
Exemplar figure, described by caption below
The Master Narrative Framework for Visualization, which may be useful for exposing Master narratives, developing Alternative narratives and establishing Personal narratives in visualization design, critique and education. Adapted from Syed and McLean [42]. We argue that the contrast between mater, alternative, and personal narratives can better define the role of visualisation in advocacy and shaping policy. We use Wee People in this figure, a typeface of people silhouettes https://github.com/propublica/weepeople .
Full Video
Abstract

Visualising personal experiences is often described as a means for self-reflection, shaping one’s identity, and sharing it with others. In policymaking, personal narratives are regarded as an important source of intelligence to shape public discourse andpolicy. Therefore, policymakers are interested in the interplay between individual-level experiences and macro-political processes that play into shaping these experiences. In this context, visualisation is regarded as a medium for advocacy, creating a power balance between individuals and the power structures that influence their health and well-being. In this paper, we offer a politically-framed reflection on how visualisation creators define lived experience data, and what design choices they make for visualising them. We identify data characteristics and design choices that enable visualisation authors and consumers to engage in a process of narrative co-construction, while navigating structural forms of inequality. Our political framing is driven by ideas of master and alternative narratives from Diversity Science, in which authors and narrators engage in a process of negotiation with power structures to either maintain or challenge the status quo.