Let me draw you a picture…

Anyone who has clarified a thought or prompted a response during a conversation by drawing a picture has exploited the potential of image making to convey information. In the Visualization Studies Research Studio, lead by University of Washington faculty member Jaime Snyder, we use qualitative and design methods to work with image-making as a form of social interaction. In order to support inclusive, ethical, and appropriate visualization practices, we investigate questions such as:

Which data are we making visible, why, and for whom? What is motivating these choices and what values are reflected in these decisions?
How we are making this data visible? What are the mechanisms of visual encoding that enable us to surface certain things and obscure other things
And what are the implications of these design choices, especially in terms of social interactions, collaboration and coordination?

Images created by participants in a co-design study looking at the visual representation of lived experiences with serious mental illness.

Jaime Snyder (2020). “Visualizing Biological Rhythms: A Critical Visual Analysis of Mental Health in Flux.” Proc of the 2020 Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS ‘20).ACM, NY, NY. Best Paper Honorable Mention (Top 5%).

Justin Petelka, Lucy Van Kleunen, Liam Albright, Elizabeth Murnane, Stephen Voida, and Jaime Snyder (2020). “Being (In)Visible: Privacy, Transparency, and Disclosure in the Self-Management of Bipolar Disorder.” In Proc of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’20). ACM, NY, NY, pp. 1–14. DOI: 10.1145/3313831.3376573.

Jaime Snyder, Elizabeth Murnane, Caitie Lustig, and Stephen Voida (2019). “Visually Encoding the Lived Experience of Bipolar Disorder.” In Proc of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’19). ACM, NY, NY, Paper 133, pp. 1–14. DOI: 10.1145/3290605.3300363.

Ari Pollack, Simon, T., Jaime Snyder, and Wanda Pratt (2019). Creating Synthetic Patient Data to Support the Design and Evaluation of Novel Health Information Technology. Journal of Biomedical Informatics, 95, p. 103201.

Jaime Snyder and Katie Shilton (2019). Spanning the Boundaries of Data Visualization Work: An Exploration of Functional Affordances and Disciplinary Values. Proc of the iConference in Springer’s Lecture Notes in Computer Science, p. 63-75.