Lora Oehlberg

Fateme Rajabiyazdi, Charles Perin, Lora Oehlberg et al.

Designing patient-collected health data visualizations to support discussing patient data during clinical visits is a challenging problem due to the heterogeneity of the parties involved: patients, healthcare providers, and healthcare systems. Designers must ensure that all parties' needs are met. This complexity makes it challenging to find a definitive solution that can work for every individual. We have approached this research problem -- communicating patient data during clinical visits -- as a wicked problem. In this article, we outline how wicked problem characteristics apply to our research problem. We then describe the research methodologies we employed to explore the design space of individualized patient data visualization solutions. Last, we reflect on the insights and experiences we gained through this exploratory design process. We conclude with a call to action for researchers and visualization designers to consider patients' and healthcare providers' individualities when designing patient data visualizations.

Wesley Willett, Bon Adriel Aseniero, Sheelagh Carpendale et al.

We explore how the lens of fictional superpowers can help characterize how visualizations empower people and provide inspiration for new visualization systems. Researchers and practitioners often tout visualizations' ability to "make the invisible visible" and to "enhance cognitive abilities." Meanwhile superhero comics and other modern fiction often depict characters with similarly fantastic abilities that allow them to see and interpret the world in ways that transcend traditional human perception. We investigate the intersection of these domains, and show how the language of superpowers can be used to characterize existing visualization systems and suggest opportunities for new and empowering ones. We introduce two frameworks: The first characterizes seven underlying mechanisms that form the basis for a variety of visual superpowers portrayed in fiction. The second identifies seven ways in which visualization tools and interfaces can instill a sense of empowerment in the people who use them. Building on these observations, we illustrate a diverse set of "visualization superpowers" and highlight opportunities for the visualization community to create new systems and interactions that empower new experiences with data.