SkyGlyphs

This pictorial paper describes a process of how we developed a tool that visualizes the vast amount of “organic data” or artifacts that employees generate and share across the company (for example, presentation slides). This research explores the challenge of visualizing repositories of such data in a way that would encourage people to browse its contents in a free-form manner by leveraging their curiosity, inciting delight, and supporting serendipity.

Abstract

SkyGlyphs: Reflections on the Design of a Delightful Visualization

Bon Adriel Aseniero, Sheelagh Carpendale, George Fitzmaurice, Justin Matejka

IEEE VIS arts program 2022

In creating SkyGlyphs, our goal was to develop a data visualization that could possibly capture people’s attention and spark their curiosity to explore a dataset. This work was inspired by a mingling of research including serendipitous interactions, visualizations for public displays, and personal visualizations. SkyGlyphs is a nonconventional whimsical visualization, depicting datapoints as animated balloons in space. We designed it to encourage non-experts to casually browse the contents of a repository through visual interactions like linking and grouping of datapoints. Our contributions include SkyGlyphs’ representation and our design reflection that reveals a perspective on how to design delightful visualizations.