Drexel's College of Computing & Informatics welcomes Dr. Jaime Snyder, MFA, PhD, Associate Professor in the Information School at the University of Washington. Dr. Snyder’s talk will use a series of projects from her Visualization Studies Research Studio (VSRS) to focus on three aspects of Grounded Visualization Design (GVD) inquiry: (1) a speculative co-design methodology for creating non-normative visual encoding systems, (2) an emergent theory of dialectic vision to understand and describe non-professional expertise and vernacular ways of observing and knowing the world, and (3) the potential for grounded visual elicitation to address epistemic burdens in participatory design practices.

 

The creation of visualizations of personal experiences, from the display of data in fitness apps to community health data dashboards, rarely involves input from the people whose experiences are being represented. GVD is a sociotechnical design research framework for creating speculative visualizations and visual encoding systems in collaboration with those stakeholders. By involving the people who are the source of data in the visualization design process, GVD explores the ways that choices made in the creation of visual representations of data, information, knowledge, and lived experiences can reflect sensemaking practices, values, and priorities. The design artifacts produced through GVD often challenge normative conventions for visualizing data, especially those data that represent personhood, personal experiences, and vernacular ways of knowing.