City Research Online

Abstract

In applied visualization research, artifacts are shaped by a series of small design decisions, many of which are evaluated quickly and informally via methods that often go unreported and unverified. Such design decisions are influenced not only by visualization theory, but also by the people and context of the research. While existing applied visualization models support a level of reliability throughout the design process, they fail to explicitly account for the influence of the research context in shaping the resulting design artifacts. In this work, we look to action design research (ADR) for insight into addressing this issue. In particular, ADR offers a framework along with a set of guiding principles for navigating and capitalizing on the disruptive, subjective, human-centered nature of applied design work, while aiming to ensure reliability of the process and design. We explore the utility of ADR in increasing the reliability of applied visualization design research by: describing ADR in the language and constructs developed within the visualization community; comparing ADR to existing visualization methodologies; and analyzing a recent design study retrospectively through the lens of ADR’s framework and principles.

Publication Type:	Book Section
Additional Information:	© ACM, 2016. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in McCurdy, N., Dykes, J. & Meyer, M. (2016). Action Design Research and Visualization Design. In: Proceedings of the Sixth Workshop on Beyond Time and Errors on Novel Evaluation Methods for Visualization. (pp. 10-18). New York, USA: ACM. ISBN 978-1-4503-4818-8 http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2993916.
Publisher Keywords:	Design study; applied visualization design research; action design research; concurrent evaluation
Subjects:	Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science
Departments:	School of Science & Technology > Computer Science > giCentre

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