Making Things Visible: Opportunities and Tensions in Visual Approaches for Design Research and Practice

Abstract

Visual approaches for conducting research during the design process often give voice to people and ideas that might otherwise remain obscured. Recent and increasing interest in visual research techniques has coincided with technological advances such as camera phones and visually oriented mobile applications. As a result of this close association between digital technologies and image-based research techniques, there are multiple opportunities and challenges within human–computer interaction (HCI) design practice to employ these strategies to improve user experiences. This article provides an overview of current visual approaches to research highlighting the role technology has played in facilitating and inspiring these techniques. A series of case studies are presented that provide a basis for understanding a breadth of visual approaches in HCI design practices as well as serve as a point of entry to a critical and reflective discussion about the use of these approaches in different circumstances. Based on these reflections, three value statements are offered as a means to encourage the use of these visual approaches more broadly and critically in HCI design studies.

NOTES

Notes

Acknowledgments. Thank you to all the participants who took part in the studies described here. We also acknowledge our many collaborators in each of these studies, in particular Vera Khovanskaya who created the speculative design sketches for the Farmers Market study.

Funding. Projects described here have received funding from Google, Intel Science and Technology Center for Pervasive Computing, and the National Science Foundation (#OCI-1025498, #IIS-0910664, and #DGE-1144153).

HCI Editorial Record. First received February 14, 2013. Revisions received September 2, 2013, and September 29, 2013. Accepted by Scott Klemmer. Final manuscript received November 21, 2013. — Editor

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jaime Snyder

Jaime Snyder ([email protected], http://jaimesnyder.com) is an information scientist and artist with an interest in social and ethical aspects of visualization practices; she is a Post Doctoral Research Associate in the Information Science Department at Cornell University and in the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University.

Eric P. S. Baumer

Eric P. S. Baumer ([email protected], http://ericbaumer.com) is an information and social scientist with an interest in the relationship between computational technologies and reflective thought; he is a Research Associate in the Communication Department of Cornell University.

Stephen Voida

Stephen Voida ([email protected], http://steve.voida.com) is a computer scientist with an interest in human–computer interaction, personal information management, personal informatics, and stress; he is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Human-Centered Computing in the School of Informatics and Computing at Indiana University Indianapolis (IUPUI).

Phil Adams

Phil Adams ([email protected], http://philadams.net) is an information scientist with an interest in mobile and social computing; he is a doctoral candidate in the Information Science Department of Cornell University.

Megan Halpern

Megan Halpern ([email protected], http://meganhalpern.com) is a communication scholar with an interest in the intersection of art and science and in human computer interaction design; she is a doctoral candidate in the Communication Department of Cornell University.

Tanzeem Choudhury

Tanzeem Choudhury ([email protected], http://www.cs.cornell.edu/~tanzeem) is a computer scientist with interests in mobile health and ubiquitous computing; she is an Associate Professor of Computing and Information Sciences at Cornell University.

Geri Gay

Geri Gay ([email protected], http://infosci.cornell.edu/faculty/geri-gay) is a social psychologist and designer interested in human–computer interaction. She is the Kenneth J. Bissett Professor of Communication and also holds a joint appointment in the Information Science Department of Cornell University.