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Affective Visualization Design: Leveraging the Emotional Impact of Data

Xingyu Lan, Yanqiu Wu, Nan Cao

TL;DR

This work conducted a literature review and identified three research lines that examined both emotion and data visualization, and coded 109 papers in terms of how they justified the legitimacy of considering emotion in visualization design, to explore the design space of affective visualization design.

Abstract

In recent years, more and more researchers have reflected on the undervaluation of emotion in data visualization and highlighted the importance of considering human emotion in visualization design. Meanwhile, an increasing number of studies have been conducted to explore emotion-related factors. However, so far, this research area is still in its early stages and faces a set of challenges, such as the unclear definition of key concepts, the insufficient justification of why emotion is important in visualization design, and the lack of characterization of the design space of affective visualization design. To address these challenges, first, we conducted a literature review and identified three research lines that examined both emotion and data visualization. We clarified the differences between these research lines and kept 109 papers that studied or discussed how data visualization communicates and influences emotion. Then, we coded the 109 papers in terms of how they justified the legitimacy of considering emotion in visualization design (i.e., why emotion is important) and identified five argumentative perspectives. Based on these papers, we also identified 61 projects that practiced affective visualization design. We coded these design projects in three dimensions, including design fields (where), design tasks (what), and design methods (how), to explore the design space of affective visualization design.

Affective Visualization Design: Leveraging the Emotional Impact of Data

TL;DR

This work conducted a literature review and identified three research lines that examined both emotion and data visualization, and coded 109 papers in terms of how they justified the legitimacy of considering emotion in visualization design, to explore the design space of affective visualization design.

Abstract

In recent years, more and more researchers have reflected on the undervaluation of emotion in data visualization and highlighted the importance of considering human emotion in visualization design. Meanwhile, an increasing number of studies have been conducted to explore emotion-related factors. However, so far, this research area is still in its early stages and faces a set of challenges, such as the unclear definition of key concepts, the insufficient justification of why emotion is important in visualization design, and the lack of characterization of the design space of affective visualization design. To address these challenges, first, we conducted a literature review and identified three research lines that examined both emotion and data visualization. We clarified the differences between these research lines and kept 109 papers that studied or discussed how data visualization communicates and influences emotion. Then, we coded the 109 papers in terms of how they justified the legitimacy of considering emotion in visualization design (i.e., why emotion is important) and identified five argumentative perspectives. Based on these papers, we also identified 61 projects that practiced affective visualization design. We coded these design projects in three dimensions, including design fields (where), design tasks (what), and design methods (how), to explore the design space of affective visualization design.
Paper Structure (25 sections, 4 figures, 1 table)

This paper contains 25 sections, 4 figures, 1 table.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Background
  3. Affective Design
  4. The Debate About Emotion in Visualization Design
  5. Corpus Collection
  6. Methodology
  7. Concept Clarification and Corpus Refinement
  8. Corpus Overview
  9. Why Affective Visualization Design
  10. From the Perspective of Application
  11. From the Perspective of Usefulness
  12. From the Perspective of Rhetoric
  13. From the Perspective of Sociology
  14. From the Perspective of Humanism
  15. Exploring the Landscape of Affective Visualization Design: Where, What, and How
  16. ...and 10 more sections

Figures (4)

  • Figure 1: The distribution of the 109 papers in our corpus over time in terms of their (a) research areas and (b) paper types.
  • Figure 2: Examples of the five argumentative perspectives: (P1) affective data stories published by news media during the COVID-19 pandemic lan2022negative, (P2) emotional color palettes can facilitate the cognitive interpretation of maps anderson2021affective, (P3) two objective-looking but rhetorical charts d2020data, (P4) a vintage pictograph that practiced Victorian values kostelnick2016re, (P5) a "cruel pie" about human fatalities dragga2001cruel and the call for data humanism lupi.
  • Figure 3: Examples of affective visualization design projects.
  • Figure 4: Six genres of affective visualization design.