Characterizing Creativity in Visualization Design

Naimul Hoque; Zinat Ara; Safwat Ali Khan; Fanny Chevalier; Niklas Elmqvist

doi:10.48550/arxiv.2504.02204

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Characterizing Creativity in Visualization Design

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Characterizing Creativity in Visualization Design

Naimul Hoque, Zinat Ara, Safwat Ali Khan, Fanny Chevalier and Niklas Elmqvist

ArXiV.org

Cornell University

04/02/2025

DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2504.02204

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https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2504.02204View

Preprint (Author's original)This preprint has not been evaluated by subject experts through peer review. Preprints may undergo extensive changes and/or become peer-reviewed journal articles. Open Access

Abstract

Understanding the role of creativity in visualization design becomes increasingly important as the field matures, particularly with the emergence of various visualization authoring and recommendation systems. In this paper, we examine how creativity manifests in visualization design processes and how academic research has conceptualized it over time. Through a systematic review of 58 visualization papers that use the terms "creativity" or "creative," we analyze the evolution of creative practices in visualization design. Our findings show that prior literature predominantly used atypical designs through free-form drawings, infographics, pictorials, and data comics to define creative representations. However, creativity in visualization design extends beyond visual representations to encompass early needfinding design activities such as sketching, storyboarding, discussion, and card sorting. Data visualization can also support a wide variety of creative tasks (e.g., fiction writing). We discuss the implications of these findings for fostering innovation within established design paradigms and for developing more sophisticated visualization authoring systems. The full list of coded papers are available here: this https URL.

Computer Science - Human-Computer Interaction

Details

Title: Subtitle: Characterizing Creativity in Visualization Design
Creators: Naimul Hoque - University of Iowa
Zinat Ara - George Mason University
Safwat Ali Khan - George Mason University
Fanny Chevalier - University of Toronto
Niklas Elmqvist - Aarhus University
Resource Type: Preprint
Publication Details: ArXiV.org
DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2504.02204
ISSN: 2331-8422
Publisher: Cornell University; Ithaca, New York
Language: English
Date posted: 04/02/2025
Academic Unit: Computer Science
Record Identifier: 9984808322202771

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