Made to Feel: How Designers Bring Emotions into Affective Visualization
For visualization researchers and practitioners, this work provides a qualitative understanding of affective visualization design processes, though it is an exploratory study without quantitative results.
This paper explores how visualization practitioners incorporate emotions into their design work through interviews with 15 practitioners, identifying functions of emotions, design strategies, and ethical considerations.
Affective visualization is increasingly studied in visualization research, yet how designers bring emotions into their visualization work remains unexplored. This paper addresses this gap through semi-structured interviews with 15 visualization practitioners. Using hybrid thematic analysis, we identify: (1) three functions that emotions can serve for viewers (entry, engagement, outcome); (2) three facets of how designers work with emotion (data, design, audience), along with design strategies; and (3) ethical considerations in the design process. We also observe that affective intent often emerges during the design process rather than being planned from the outset, and that emotional impact arises from accumulated design choices rather than isolated visual elements. Finally, we highlight evaluation as a key challenge identified by our participants.