On Regulatory and Organizational Constraints in Visualization Design and Evaluation

TL;DR

This paper investigates how regulatory and organizational constraints influence visualization design and evaluation, proposing strategies to incorporate these external factors for more valid and useful visualization solutions, exemplified through a healthcare case study.

Contribution

It introduces a framework for identifying and managing external constraints in visualization projects, enhancing design validity and collaboration success.

Findings

External constraints significantly impact visualization design and evaluation.

Strategies from software development and project management can mitigate these constraints.

Applying these strategies improves visualization utility and project outcomes.

Abstract

Problem-based visualization research provides explicit guidance toward identifying and designing for the needs of users, but absent is more concrete guidance toward factors external to a user's needs that also have implications for visualization design and evaluation. This lack of more explicit guidance can leave visualization researchers and practitioners vulnerable to unforeseen constraints beyond the user's needs that can affect the validity of evaluations, or even lead to the premature termination of a project. Here we explore two types of external constraints in depth, regulatory and organizational constraints, and describe how these constraints impact visualization design and evaluation. By borrowing from techniques in software development, project management, and visualization research we recommend strategies for identifying, mitigating, and evaluating these external constraints through a design study methodology. Finally, we present an application of those recommendations in a healthcare case study. We argue that by explicitly incorporating external constraints into visualization design and evaluation, researchers and practitioners can improve the utility and validity of their visualization solution and improve the likelihood of successful collaborations with industries where external constraints are more present.