Next week, 20 to 21 October 2018, Olivia Vane and I will be at the Information+ conference at University of Applied Sciences Potsdam (FH Potsdam), Germany. We will be asking what design contributes – or should contribute – to information design, especially in the digital humanities. Here is our abstract:
Designers — what are they good for (in data visualisation)?
Our focus is the digital humanities, especially visualisation of datasets such as text archives and object collections data in museums. The name “digital humanities” implies just two disciplines, computing and the humanities. What is the designer’s role? Collectively we should be able to explain what our contribution is —especially when some may fear our replacement by AI systems. We argue that there are particular aspects of designing that are distinctive and can enable more effective visualisations to be produced: (1) expertise in the visual articulation of meaning, (2) human-centric methods, and (3) the quick and adaptable use of low-fidelity early prototyping. We base our argument especially on the idea of design as a form of inquiry or research, and illustrate the three benefits using our recent interactive data visualisations with organisations including the Wellcome Library, Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum and V&A London.It looks a great programme and we expect real progress to emerge around other questions like value and trust in visualisation.
SATURDAY, 20 OCTConference website: http://informationplusconference.com/
SUNDAY, 21 OCT
- Sandra Rendgen KEYNOTE Inventing the future, one visualization at a time
- Claudia Rebeca Méndez Escarza Mixtec pictorial manuscripts: A source of visual information
- Günther Schreder + Eva Mayr Quo vadis, Isotype?
- Sam Holleran A History of “visual literacy” campaigns
- Will Stahl-Timmins The BMJ visual abstracts
- Guillermina Noël + Jorge Frascara Designing an optimal document in the health sector
- Lightning talks: Sol Kawage; Adina Renner; Jessica Bellamy
- Olivia Vane + Stephen Boyd Davis Designers — what are they good for (in data visualisation)?
- Sarah Campbell Feeling numbers: The emotional impact of proximity techniques in visualization
- Doris Kosminsky + Jagoda Walny Belief at first sight: Data visualization and the rationalization of seeing
- Lightning talks: Sibylle Schlaich + Anita Meier; Valentina D’Efilippo; Nadieh Bremer
- Grga Basic We Can: Data driven project exploring the lives of NYC canners
- Kennedy Elliott Think like a journalist: Tips for stronger, clearer and more cohesive visual narratives
- Reuben Fischer-Baum + Chiqui Esteban KEYNOTE Working in a graphics visual storytelling team
- Fernanda Viégas + Martin Wattenberg KEYNOTE Data visualization for machine learning
- Christian Au + Christian Laesser + Stephan Thiel Peakspotting — a visual tool for managing the capacity of Germany’s rail traffic network
- Raphael Reimann Empathizing with AI: How to see like a selfdriving car
- Jesse Josua Benjamin + Claudia Müller-Birn Designing for algorithm awareness in peer production systems
- Pedro M. Cruz Simulated dendrochronology of immigrants and natural-borns in the United States, showing the fifty states (1790–2016)
- Richard Brath Techniques for adding diverse contextual data into visualizations
- Yvette Shen Visualizing philosophy: A modern design approach to understand I-Ching
- Kelly Murdoch-Kitt + Denielle J. Emans Participatory data visualizations support intercultural collaboration
- Anne Luther Qualitative data visualization: The Entity Mapper
- Lightning talks: Theodor Hillmann; Fritz Lekschas; Alec Barrett
- Catherine D'Ignazio Data feminism
- Greg McInerny Lost in the universe of graphical objects? Critical visualisation, disciplinary myopias and the visualisation spectrum
- Ron Morrison KEYNOTE Decoding space: Liquid infrastructures
