Our Stories, Our Data: Co-designing Visualizations with People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

TL;DR

This paper explores co-designing accessible data visualizations with individuals with IDD, highlighting their capacity for data analysis and proposing strategies like transforming data into narratives and integrating aesthetics.

Contribution

It introduces a participatory design approach involving people with IDD to develop cognitively accessible visualization strategies, emphasizing their active role in data sensemaking.

Findings

Participants with IDD can analyze and express data effectively.

Narrative transformation enhances data comprehension for IDD.

Blending aesthetics with data design improves accessibility.

Abstract

Individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD) have unique needs and challenges when working with data. While visualization aims to make data more accessible to a broad audience, our understanding of how to design cognitively accessible visualizations remains limited. In this study, we engaged 20 participants with IDD as co-designers to explore how they approach and visualize data. Our preliminary investigation paired four participants as data pen-pals in a six-week online asynchronous participatory design workshop. In response to the observed conceptual, technological, and emotional struggles with data, we subsequently organized a two-day in-person co-design workshop with 16 participants to further understand relevant visualization authoring and sensemaking strategies. Reflecting on how participants engaged with and represented data, we propose two strategies for cognitively accessible data visualizations: transforming numbers into narratives and blending data design with everyday aesthetics. Our findings emphasize the importance of involving individuals with IDD in the design process, demonstrating their capacity for data analysis and expression, and underscoring the need for a narrative and tangible approach to accessible data visualization.