An Autoethnography on Visualization Literacy: A Wicked Measurement Problem

Many components of visualization literacy are represented. One is selected to design a test, bringing the question of the type of visualization type and task to perform.


We contribute an autoethnographic reflection on the complexity of defining and measuring visualization literacy (i.e., the ability to interpret and construct visualizations) to expose our tacit thoughts that often exist in-between polished works and remain unreported in individual research papers. Our work is inspired by the growing number of empirical studies in visualization research that rely on visualization literacy as a basis for developing effective data representations or educational interventions. Researchers have already made various efforts to assess this construct, yet it is often hard to pinpoint either what we want to measure or what we are effectively measuring.

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VIS 2025 acceptance: “An Autoethnography on Visualization Literacy: A Wicked Measurement Problem”

Our full paper “An Autoethnography on Visualization Literacy: A Wicked Measurement Problem” was accepted at IEEE VIS 2025. Lily Ge will present it at the VIS conference in Vienna. Continue reading VIS 2025 acceptance: “An Autoethnography on Visualization Literacy: A Wicked Measurement Problem”

A case to study the relationship between data visualization readability and visualization literacy (position paper)

Only with reliable and relevant measures can we assess how a potential factor affects a reader’s performance; accordingly, only with appropriate measuring instruments can we start to investigate the tight web of interactions between individual characteristics, features of the visual design, and reading tasks requirements. As we slowly progress in our understanding of how people process information from data visualization, and based on these improved tools and other developments, we can further develop theoretical foundations in data visualization.

This position paper was accepted at ACM CHI24 Workshop: Toward a More Comprehensive Understanding of Visualization Literacy.

Continue reading A case to study the relationship between data visualization readability and visualization literacy (position paper)