DVUX Meetup: Aesthetics in data visualization

On Wednesday, 4/11/18 we hosted a DVUX Meetup at the Venture Cafe with guest speaker Irene de la Torre, a data visualization specialist at MIT’s Senseable City Lab. Irene presented a talk on the use of aesthetics in data visualization, and walked through a case study of her thesis work.

Some of the questions we addressed:

• What role do aesthetics play in visualization?
• When should we use motion and animation?
• When should we consider making a visualization interactive vs static?
• When do aesthetics matter more or less? How can we make that judgement?

After the keynote, Erica Gunn of Shyft Analytics facilitated an open discussion around the use of color and the importance of color accessibility in data visualization. How can we use color to make something aesthetically pleasing, but ensure usability?

Check out Irene’s work here.

Thanks to all who joined us for the Meetup! Join the DVUX group here.