May (A)I Beautify Your Visualization? Expert Judgments of Acceptable Aesthetic Alterations
This study provides empirical evidence for visualization designers and AI tool developers about which aesthetic alterations are considered permissible versus sensitive, highlighting a bias against AI authorship.
An expert survey (N=95) found that the perceived acceptability of aesthetic alterations to 3D visualizations depends more on the type of transformation than on whether it is applied by humans or AI, though AI-generated changes are consistently rated as less acceptable than identical human-produced ones.
In 3D visualizations of natural phenomena, improving aesthetics can provide measurable benefits, but often involves transformations that affect how the data is perceived. As a growing range of tools - including AI-based methods - make visual design and modification more accessible, it is increasingly important to understand trade offs and concerns when making these changes. We conducted an expert survey (N=95) with visualization researchers, practitioners, and domain scientists, investigating reactions to fifteen alterations spanning presentation-level adjustments (e.g., lighting, camera position) and data-level modifications (e.g., removing errors, filling gaps), applied by both humans and AI systems. Results show differences in perceived acceptability are driven by the transformation's meaning, regardless of whether it operates at the presentation or data level. Additionally, certain modifications were consistently judged as more permissible than others regardless of human or AI authorship. While this relative ordering remains largely stable, AI-generated transformations are consistently rated as less acceptable than identical human-produced changes. These results reveal a distinction between more permissible and more sensitive alterations, and suggest the need for both designers and AI-assisted visualization tools to incorporate constraints and guardrails that reflect these differences.