The Gulf of Interpretation: From Chart to Message and Back Again

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Knoll, Christian, Möller, Torsten, Gregory, Kathleen, Koesten, Laura
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2023
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author Knoll, Christian
Möller, Torsten
Gregory, Kathleen
Koesten, Laura
author_facet Knoll, Christian
Möller, Torsten
Gregory, Kathleen
Koesten, Laura
contents Charts are used to communicate data visually, but often, we do not know whether a chart's intended message aligns with the message readers perceive. In this mixed-methods study, we investigate how data journalists encode data and how members of a broad audience engage with, experience, and understand these visualizations. We conducted workshops and interviews with school and university students, job seekers, designers, and senior citizens to collect perceived messages and feedback on eight real-world charts. We analyzed these messages and compared them to the intended message. Our results help to understand the gulf that can exist between messages (that producers encode) and viewer interpretations. In particular, we find that consumers are often overwhelmed with the amount of data provided and are easily confused with terms that are not well known. Chart producers tend to follow strong conventions on how to visually encode particular information that might not always benefit consumers.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2310_05752
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The Gulf of Interpretation: From Chart to Message and Back Again
Knoll, Christian
Möller, Torsten
Gregory, Kathleen
Koesten, Laura
Human-Computer Interaction
Charts are used to communicate data visually, but often, we do not know whether a chart's intended message aligns with the message readers perceive. In this mixed-methods study, we investigate how data journalists encode data and how members of a broad audience engage with, experience, and understand these visualizations. We conducted workshops and interviews with school and university students, job seekers, designers, and senior citizens to collect perceived messages and feedback on eight real-world charts. We analyzed these messages and compared them to the intended message. Our results help to understand the gulf that can exist between messages (that producers encode) and viewer interpretations. In particular, we find that consumers are often overwhelmed with the amount of data provided and are easily confused with terms that are not well known. Chart producers tend to follow strong conventions on how to visually encode particular information that might not always benefit consumers.
title The Gulf of Interpretation: From Chart to Message and Back Again
topic Human-Computer Interaction
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.05752