The Values of Visualization: Nurturing a Reflective Community of Practice with Critical Visualization Activities

We report on three years of shared reflection among nine colleagues with different but complementary backgrounds, roles, and career stages who share a common interest in and commitment to visualization research, teaching, and learning. In our international community of practice, we reflect on our visualization belief systems through critical visualization activities that help us consider, develop and question our values in the context of our distinct personal and professional lives. To ground our research, we review the history of critical and reflective visualization. We suggest that reflective visualization practices offer opportunities for (1) deepening the role that value systems play in visualization teaching, research, and practice (including ethical, cultural, and personal values), (2) developing pedagogical activities in which diverse approaches to data visualization are used to acknowledge the role of values, and (3) nurturing critical reflective practices across communities of students, teachers, practitioners, and researchers. We anticipate that these opportunities are widely applicable to data visualization. These reflective practices may benefit from approaches that encourage surfacing the diverse values of visualization. We hope our sharing and reflection can contribute to a vibrant, ongoing discussion of the role of values in visualization research, teaching, and practice; drive the creation and sharing of new activities and approaches; and encourage the formation of new reflective and supportive groups within our larger visualization community.