Project Sponsor - National Science Foundation

Researchers - Prakash Chandra Shukla and Dr. Paul Parsons

1. Background

Rational decision making is often viewed as a model for dealing with complex situations. But, empirical investigation on decision making with designers and professionals of other fields shows that rational decision making is an exception rather than a rule when people face with uncertain and complex situations. Instead, practitioners rely on pattern of experiences and make continual and layered judgment that matches less to the formal and logical decision.

However, less has been known about the ways in which these judgment takes place and how we may improve the judgment that practitioners make while designing.

2. Research Question

How do data visualization designers make judgments as they confront the complexities of real-world practice, especially with respect to: i) formulating problems ii) generating solutions.

3. Study Design

In this study, we’re investigating how data visualization practitioners formulate problem, re-frame it and generate solutions. We’re using the following methods in the study:

Fig 1: Timeline for the study

Fig 1: Timeline for the study

3.1 Participants

We’re aiming to recruit up to 30 participants in total. That would include 15 expert and 15 novice data visualization practitioners. This is the ideal number of participants that we need for data-saturation.

3.1.1 Experts and novices