arXiv subjects

Shehryar Saharan

Publications and source records attributed to Shehryar Saharan.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Representational Fidelity in Didactic Visualization: Toward a Multidimensional Design Space

Representational fidelity is routinely treated as a single abstract-realistic continuum, a simplification that limits how it is described and compared across research and design contexts. We introduce a multidimensional design space of representational fidelity for didactic visualization in science & engineering, inductively derived from a 175-item corpus spanning several disciplines, modalities, and instructional aims. The resulting design space specifies five dimensions: Morphological, Dynamic, Cueing, Contextual, and Interactive Fidelity, with seven sub-dimensions. We demonstrate the design space's descriptive power through successive rounds of expansion and refinement and analyze the corpus to reveal relationships among dimensions and implications for design and research. We further validate the design space through a pilot focus group in which participants applied the dimensions in an open-ended design exercise. Resulting sketches and verbal rationales informed a single-designer applied case study, offering preliminary evidence of the design space's generative potential as a structured aid to design exploration. Together, these contributions lay the groundwork for future research and more intentional design practice.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2026

What We Risk Losing When Creating Gets Easy: Friction, Judgment, and Critical Reflective Practice with Generative AI in Creative Work

GenAI in creative practice can help narrow the gap between intention and output, but in so doing changes the very nature of that creative process. In this position paper, we argue that the friction of making is not overhead to be removed, but essential to creative work: the resistance through which judgment is built and refined. Rejecting both outright refusal and uncritical adoption, we call for critical reflective practice: the deliberate, ongoing, and situated weighing of when to use or refuse GenAI in creative work, treating the formation of judgment as an epistemic virtue that design and pedagogy should (continue to) uphold. Two voices, the GenAI Skeptic and GenAI Enthusiast, drawn from our professional and personal experiences, argue with each other and with us throughout. We close with open questions for researchers, educators, and practitioners navigating the grey areas of GenAI in creative practice.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2026

A Critical Reflection on the Values and Assumptions in Data Visualization

Visualization has matured into an established research field, producing widely adopted tools, design frameworks, and empirical foundations. As the field has grown, ideas from outside computer science have increasingly entered visualization discourse, questioning the fundamental values and assumptions on which visualization research stands. In this short position paper, we examine a set of values that we see underlying the seminal works of Jacques Bertin, John Tukey, Leland Wilkinson, Colin Ware, and Tamara Munzner. We articulate three prominent values in these texts - universality, objectivity, and efficiency - and examine how these values permeate visualization tools, curricula, and research practices. We situate these values within a broader set of critiques that call for more diverse priorities and viewpoints. By articulating these tensions, we call for our community to embrace a more pluralistic range of values to shape our future visualization tools and guidelines.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2025

"It looks sexy but it's wrong." Tensions in creativity and accuracy using genAI for biomedical visualization

We contribute an in-depth analysis of the workflows and tensions arising from generative AI (genAI) use in biomedical visualization (BioMedVis). Although genAI affords facile production of aesthetic visuals for biological and medical content, the architecture of these tools fundamentally limits the accuracy and trustworthiness of the depicted information, from imaginary (or fanciful) molecules to alien anatomy. Through 17 interviews with a diverse group of practitioners and researchers, we qualitatively analyze the concerns and values driving genAI (dis)use for the visual representation of spatially-oriented biomedical data. We find that BioMedVis experts, both in roles as developers and designers, use genAI tools at different stages of their daily workflows and hold attitudes ranging from enthusiastic adopters to skeptical avoiders of genAI. In contrasting the current use and perspectives on genAI observed in our study with predictions towards genAI in the visualization pipeline from prior work, we refocus the discussion of genAI's effects on projects in visualization in the here and now with its respective opportunities and pitfalls for future visualization research. At a time when public trust in science is in jeopardy, we are reminded to first do no harm, not just in biomedical visualization but in science communication more broadly. Our observations reaffirm the necessity of human intervention for empathetic design and assessment of accurate scientific visuals.

cs.HC↗