Considering the Role of Guidelines in Visualization Design Practice

Abstract

Guidelines are commonly viewed as an important form of design knowledge that can support the principled application of research findings to visualization design. Researchers regularly propose design guidelines as outputs from studies with the aim of prescribing design activity. However, inquiry into the actual use of design guidelines by practitioners is often unaddressed or left for future work. We propose there is a need for visualization researchers to better understand the realities of design practice, especially its epistemological foundations, and how different forms of design knowledge are actually employed rather than how researchers imagine them to be employed.

How visualization designers' assumptions can mislead in communicating with visualizations

“…As this community grows, there has been a concentrated effort towards establishing guidelines, frameworks, and principles [6] to support visualization practitioners. Parsons and Shukla [17] argue that these recommendations should align with how practitioners design in real-world settings to better fit the reality of design practice. There have been efforts in understanding how practitioners work in real-world situations [4,5,15,16,21], yet much remains to be done, including understanding the tacit beliefs and assumptions that practitioners bear in mind while creating visualizations.…”