Wikidata Visualization for Event and Temporal Data Exploration in Digital Humanities and Cultural Heritage

Temporal data are crucial in many research activities within Digital Humanities (DH) and Cultural Heritage (CH). At the same time, there is a growing need for visualization tools to explore events in Linked Data (LD). This article investigates LD visualization tools that address event data in association with temporal data for research purposes in DH and CH. We analyze the availability of Wikidata visualization tools capable of handling event data for DH and CH research and propose ways to improve visualization tools to better represent temporal data in Wikidata. We identified 14 requirements based on principles from the information visualization domain, as well as an analysis of previous studies and existing tools. We design and develop a Wikidata-centric tool to meet these requirements. This tool is then evaluated through focus groups and questionnaires with DH and CH experts. The results of the evaluation show overall positive feedback and highlight the implicit need and value of visualization tools that handle events in Wikidata for research in DH and CH. In addition, they indicate the improved accessibility and visualization capabilities of Wikidata through the seven time-related functionalities of the tool.