Paul Wilson’s seminar at the OU’s Knowledge Media Institute

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Design has a role in working for the ‘common good’, playing a significant part in our engagement with the world and, within the Election Debate Visualisation project, working to translate data into compelling, engaging and illuminating stories. The design thread within the project has begun to investigate visual methods for rapid and semiotically-holistic feedback, and is beginning to work on exploring ways to map argument to dynamic landscapes of information. We’re keen to critically question the rhetoric of ‘neutrality’ around information design: what role can beauty play? Is an aesthetically-pleasing experience something which is commonly recognised as an accessible one? We’re also keen to establish and test the visual needs of audience members in novel ways – maybe this will lead to the need for an inbuilt ‘bias’ to the design? We welcome any thoughts or comments on these questions.

In the context of his visit to the OU, Paul Wilson from the EDV Leeds team gave a seminar in KMi on Tuesday 29 July. Details of the event, a podcast and links to the slides are available below.

 

Designed visualisation: good design doing good?

This event took place on 29th July 2014 at 11:30amWilson-KMiInternalSeminar-Speaker Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University, UK

Paul Wilson

The talk will introduce ideas around design as an agent of change and how designed visual communications can operate within the field of argument visualisation.The opportunities present within the the EPSRC-funded platform for Election Debate Visualisation in 2015 allow for design to (re)invent within an area of critical need, situating the power of design and data visualisation in the service of telling compelling, engaging and illuminating stories to the audiences of the Prime Ministerial debates. Focusing on the inherent tensions between neutrality and visual clarity, and the power for beautiful design to allow of accessibility, the presentation will outline some challenges for the team in the creation of research tools, interfaces and visualisations and will touch upon some thoughts around methods for making and methods for testing the platform’s design prototypes.

 

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Designed visualisation: good design doing good? – 29 July 2014

[PDF Slides]


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