Participatory Visualization Design as an Approach to Minimize the Gap between Research and Application

Abstract

Despite acceptance in our field, many sophisticated visualization projects suffer from failing acceptance by the targeted audience. Though the reasons for this circumstance might be manifold, we argue that they align with the typical pitfalls of software development. On the one hand, stakeholders are often not or only marginally integrated in the visualization design process, on the other hand, the goals we follow as visualization scholars do often not align with the goals of the stakeholders, reducing them to data deliverers. We provide case studies reporting on finished and ongoing projects following a participatory design approach. Those projects are initiated by the needs from users in digital humanities, biodiversity research, sports analysis and data science, and our results indicate that participatory visualization design leads to mutual benefits, reducing the gap between research and application in the targeted domain.