Complexity as Design Material
Florian Windhager - University for Continuing Education Krems, Krems, Austria
Alfie Abdul-Rahman - King's College London, London, United Kingdom
Mark-Jan Bludau - University of Applied Sciences Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
Nicole Hengesbach - Warwick Institute for the Science of Cities, Coventry, United Kingdom
Houda Lamqaddam - University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Isabel Meirelles - OCAD University, Toronto, Canada
Bettina Speckmann - TU Eindhoven, Eindhoven, Netherlands
Michael Correll - Northeastern University, Portland, United States
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Room: Bayshore I
2024-10-14T16:00:00ZGMT-0600Change your timezone on the schedule page
2024-10-14T16:00:00Z
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Abstract
Complexity is often seen as a inherent negative in information design, with the job of the designer being to reduce or eliminate complexity, and with principles like Tufte’s “data-ink ratio” or “chartjunk” to operationalize minimalism and simplicity in visualizations. However, in this position paper, we call for a more expansive view of complexity as a design material, like color or texture or shape: an element of information design that can be used in many ways, many of which are beneficial to the goals of using data to understand the world around us. We describe complexity as a phenomenon that occurs not just in visual design but in every aspect of the sensemaking process, from data collection to interpretation. For each of these stages, we present examples of ways that these various forms of complexity can be used (or abused) in visualization design. We ultimately call on the visualization community to build a more nuanced view of complexity, to look for places to usefully integrate complexity in multiple stages of the design process, and, even when the goal is to reduce complexity, to look for the non-visual forms of complexity that may have otherwise been overlooked.