Toward Visual Methods: Reflections on How Visuals Enrich Empirical Research

Authors

Zezhong Wang (University of St Andrews), Sheelagh Carpendale (Simon Fraser University), Samuel Huron (Télécom Paris, Institut Polytechnique de Paris)

Links

Keywords

H.5.2 [Information Interfaces and Presentation (e.g., HCI)]: User Interfaces—Evaluation/methodology; I.3.6 [Computer Graphics]: Methodology and Techniques—Interaction techniques

Abstract

In design disciplines, particularly human-computer interaction (HCI) and information visualization (VIS), researchers often need to study qualitative material that is visual in nature, like screenshots, sketches, photographs, videos, or images of physical objects and spaces. Despite an existing literature on how to analyze visual artifacts in social science and the arts, few papers reflect on the value and the means to support such analysis in the context of information visualization or graphical user interface design. This is particularly intriguing, as visual design is often the primary channel for communicating data, and visual perception is one of humans’ main epistemic sources in the world. Over the past 25 years, we have analyzed such visual artifacts across dozens of our own qualitative studies and surveys. We present six cases, reflect on four values and practical strategies for using visual methods for analyzing visual artifacts, and introduce an open archive of visual methods for HCI and VIS at visualmethods.pages.dev.