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Article published In: Information Visualization
Edited by Isabel Meirelles, Marian Dörk and Yanni Loukissas
[Information Design Journal 27:1] 2022
► pp. 64–75

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Seeing what is not shown

Combining visualization critique and design to surface the limitations in data

ORCiD logo with link | University of WarwickCoventry
 | University of WarwickCoventry
 | University of Glasgow
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Published online: 7 November 2022
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https://doi.org/10.1075/idj.22006.hen
Abstract
Critical studies of data visualization often highlight how the reductive nature of visualization methods excludes data limitations and qualities that are crucial to understanding those data. This case study explores how a data visualization could express contingent, situated, and contextual facets of data. We examine how such data limitations might be surfaced and represented within visualizations through an interplay between the critique of an existing data visualization and the development of alternative designs. Based on a case study of urban tree data, we interrogate data limitations in relation to four different types of missingness: Incompleteness, Emptiness, Absence, and Nothingness. Our study enables reflections on how data limitations can be investigated using visualizations and considers the development of a critical visualization practice.
Article outline
  • 1.Background
  • 2.Case study: An urban tree map
  • 3.Methodology
  • 4.Exploring missingness
    • 4.1In/completeness
    • 4.2Emptiness
    • 4.3Absence
    • 4.4Nothingness
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
References (43)
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