arXiv subjects

Paul C. Parsons

Publications and source records attributed to Paul C. Parsons.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Design Knowledge in Data Visualization: Mapping the Epistemic Landscape

Data visualization research has developed many influential forms of design knowledge, including perceptual principles, design guidelines, process models, and formalized representations of design constraints. These contributions have been effective at articulating explicit, portable, and codified forms of knowledge. Yet the broader landscape on which visualization design depends remains less clearly articulated, especially with respect to intermediate-level knowledge, precedents, tacit repertoires, and situated forms of knowing. In this paper, we draw on design theory to map this broader landscape of design knowledge in data visualization. Through this lens, we show how visualization research has built substantial strengths in some regions while leaving others comparatively underarticulated. We further argue that visualization design depends not only on knowledge artifacts such as theories, guidelines, and patterns, but also on knowledge-in-use---the situated interpretation, adaptation, and coordination of multiple forms of knowing in concrete design situations. This broader account has implications for how the field conceptualizes design expertise, evaluates and develops scholarly contributions, and approaches AI-assisted design. Rather than treating visualization design as either fully formalizable or wholly resistant to computational support, we argue for a differentiated view in which computational systems can support some forms of design knowing, while others remain inseparable from human judgment, contextual interpretation, and the ongoing reorganization of design work in practice.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2026

Situatedness in Visualization Design: Making Unresolved Work Actionable

Visualization design often proceeds under unresolved conditions---goals shift, data remain provisional, stakeholder needs evolve, and several plausible directions may remain available at once. Existing visualization frameworks help organize design work and articulate major decisions, yet offer limited explanation of how practitioners proceed before a path forward has become clear. Drawing on an episode-level analysis of a previously collected three-phase qualitative corpus involving eleven expert visualization practitioners, we examine situations in which the problem, representational target, or viable direction remained unsettled. We find that practitioners make such situations actionable through provisional local moves. These moves reveal patterns, distinctions, and interpretive possibilities; clarify what is tractable, viable, or worth pursuing; and sometimes reorient the work itself. The analysis shows that situated action, professional judgment, and explicit design reasoning are intertwined in expert practice. It also identifies a practical limit on how fully design activity can be specified in advance. When the meaning of the next move depends on what a situation reveals in response to action, prescriptive decision structures cannot fully determine the course of design. The paper contributes an empirical account of situatedness in visualization practice and explains how local action makes unresolved work interpretable enough for consequential design decisions.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2025

Rethinking UX for Sustainable Science Gateways: Orientations from Practice

As science gateways mature, sustainability has become a central concern for funders, developers, and institutions. Although user experience (UX) is increasingly acknowledged as vital, it is often approached narrowly--limited to interface usability or deferred until late in development. This paper argues that UX should be understood not as a discrete feature or evaluation stage but as a design-oriented perspective for reasoning about sustainability. Drawing on principles from user-centered design and systems thinking, this view recognizes that infrastructure, staffing, community engagement, and development timelines all shape how gateways are experienced and maintained over time. Based on an interview study and consulting experience with more than 65 gateway projects, the paper identifies three recurring orientations toward UX--ad hoc, project-based, and strategic--that characterize how teams engage with users and integrate design thinking into their workflows. These orientations are not a maturity model but a reflective lens for understanding how UX is positioned within gateway practice. Reframing UX as a structural dimension of sustainability highlights its role in building adaptable, community-aligned, and enduring scientific infrastructure.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2025

Visualization Was Here: Reorienting Research When Visualizations Fade into the Background

Visualization research often centers on how visual representations generate insight, guide interpretation, or support decision-making. But in many real-world domains, visualizations do not stand out--they recede into the background, stabilized and trusted as part of the everyday infrastructure of work. This paper explores what it means to take such quiet roles seriously. Drawing on theoretical traditions from joint cognitive systems, naturalistic decision making, and infrastructure studies, I examine how visualization can become embedded in the rhythms of expert practice--less a site of intervention than a scaffold for attention, coordination, and judgment. I illustrate this reorientation with examples from mission control operations at NASA, where visualizations are deeply integrated but rarely interrogated. Rather than treat invisibility as a failure of design or innovation, I argue that visualization's infrastructural presence demands new concepts, methods, and critical sensibilities. The goal is not to diminish visualization's importance, but to broaden the field's theoretical repertoire--to recognize and support visualization-in-use even when it fades from view.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2025

Beyond Problem Solving: Framing and Problem-Solution Co-Evolution in Data Visualization Design

Visualization design is often described as the process of solving a well-defined problem by navigating a design space. While existing visualization design models have provided valuable structure and guidance, they tend to foreground technical problem-solving and underemphasize the interpretive, judgment-based aspects of design. In contrast, research in other design disciplines has emphasized the importance of framing--how designers define and redefine what the problem is--and the co-evolution of problem and solution spaces through reflective practice. These dimensions remain underexplored in visualization research, particularly from the perspective of expert practitioners. This paper investigates how visualization designers frame problems and navigate the dynamic interplay between problem understanding and solution development. We conducted a mixed-methods study with 11 expert practitioners using design challenges, diary entries, and semi-structured interviews. Through reflexive thematic analysis, we identified key strategies that participants used to frame problems, reframe them in response to evolving constraints or insights, and build bridges between problem and solution spaces. These included using metaphors, heuristics, sketching, primary generators, and reflective evaluation of failed or incomplete ideas. Our findings contribute an empirically grounded account of visualization design as a reflective, co-evolutionary practice, where framing is not a preliminary step but a continuous activity embedded in design. Participants often reshaped their understanding of the problem based on solution attempts, tool feedback, and ethical or narrative concerns. These insights extend current visualization design models and highlight the need for frameworks that better account for framing and interpretive judgment. (See paper for full abstract.)

cs.HC↗

arXiv2025

Judgment as Coordination: A Joint Systems View of Visualization Design Practice

Professional visualization design has become an increasingly important area of inquiry, yet much of the field's discourse remains anchored in researcher-centered contexts. Studies of design practice often focus on individual designers' decisions and reflections, offering limited insight into the collaborative and systemic dimensions of professional work. In this paper, we propose a systems-level reframing of design judgment grounded in the coordination and adaptation that sustain progress amid uncertainty, constraint, and misalignment. Drawing on sustained engagement across multiple empirical studies--including ethnographic observation of design teams and qualitative studies of individual practitioners--we identify recurring episodes in which coherence was preserved not by selecting an optimal option, but by repairing alignment, adjusting plans, and reframing goals. We interpret these dynamics through the lens of Joint Cognitive Systems, which provide tools for analyzing how judgment emerges as a distributed capacity within sociotechnical activity. This perspective surfaces often-invisible work in visualization design and offers researchers a new conceptual vocabulary for studying how design activity is sustained in practice.

cs.HC↗