Enrico Bertini has a great article online that’s a recap of his presentation at Visualizing Europe. Being quite possibly the only CS Visualization Researcher in a room full of non-researchers, he found himself in the minority and wondering how to discuss visualization with them. His solution:
After reflecting a little bit about their content and their frustration I recognized the same frustration in me and decided it was time to react. And my reaction, I decided, had to be a strong one. I realized in fact that the whole problem of visualization usefulness can be removed if we change our mindset. I realized that one of the reason why we ask ourselves whether visualization is useful or not is because we don’t have a clear focus on those problems in which visualization is not just useful, but plainly indispensable.
I’ve done this exercise myself many times for users. Visualization isn’t useful in all situations, as much as we may wish it was. But there are many many fields where it is a requirement, and those fields are typically overlooked because it’s old-hat.
via Data Visualization is NOT Useful. It’s Indispensable. — Fell in Love with Data.
Just right to the point! Thanks for commenting on it.