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Data Humanism decoded: A characterization of its principles to bridge data visualization researchers and practitioners

I. Al-Hazwani, K. E. A. Zhang, L. Garrison, and J. Bernard

Abstract

Data Humanism is a human-centered design approach that emphasizes the personal, contextual, and imperfect nature of data. Despite its growing influence among practitioners, the 13 principles outlined in Giorgia Lupi’s visual manifesto remain loosely defined in research contexts, creating a gap between design practice and systematic application. Through a mixed-methods approach, including a systematic literature review, multimedia analysis, and expert interviews, we present a characterization of Data Humanism principles for visualization researchers. Our characterization provides concrete definitions that maintain interpretive flexibility in operationalizing design choices. We validate our work through direct consultation with Lupi. Moreover, we leverage the characterization to decode a visualization work, mapping Data Humanism principles to specific visual design choices. Our work creates a common language for human-centered visualization, bridging the gap between practice and research for future applications and evaluations.

I. Al-Hazwani, K. E. A. Zhang, L. Garrison, and J. Bernard, "Data Humanism decoded: A characterization of its principles to bridge data visualization researchers and practitioners," in Proceedings of IEEE VIS 2025 (Short Papers)–in press", Los Alamitos, 2025.
[BibTeX]

Data Humanism is a human-centered design approach that emphasizes the personal, contextual, and imperfect nature of data. Despite its growing influence among practitioners, the 13 principles outlined in Giorgia Lupi’s visual manifesto remain loosely defined in research contexts, creating a gap between design practice and systematic application. Through a mixed-methods approach, including a systematic literature review, multimedia analysis, and expert interviews, we present a characterization of Data Humanism principles for visualization researchers. Our characterization provides concrete definitions that maintain interpretive flexibility in operationalizing design choices. We validate our work through direct consultation with Lupi. Moreover, we leverage the characterization to decode a visualization work, mapping Data Humanism principles to specific visual design choices. Our work creates a common language for human-centered visualization, bridging the gap between practice and research for future applications and evaluations.
@inproceedings{alhazwani2025datahum,
author = {Al-Hazwani, Ibrahim and Zhang, Ke Er Amy and Garrison, Laura and Bernard, J{\"u}rgen},
title = {Data Humanism decoded: A characterization of its principles to bridge
data visualization researchers and practitioners},
booktitle = {Proceedings of IEEE VIS 2025 (Short Papers)--in press"},
year = {2025},
numpages = {5},
publisher = {IEEE Computer Society},
address = {Los Alamitos},
abstract = {Data Humanism is a human-centered design approach that emphasizes the personal, contextual, and imperfect nature of data. Despite its growing influence among practitioners, the 13 principles outlined in Giorgia Lupi’s visual manifesto remain loosely defined in research contexts, creating a gap between design practice and systematic application. Through a mixed-methods approach, including a systematic literature review, multimedia analysis, and expert interviews, we present a characterization of Data Humanism principles for visualization researchers. Our characterization provides concrete definitions that maintain interpretive flexibility in operationalizing design choices. We validate our work through direct consultation with Lupi. Moreover, we leverage the characterization to decode a visualization work, mapping Data Humanism principles to specific visual design choices. Our work creates a common language for human-centered visualization, bridging the gap between practice and research for future applications and evaluations.},
pdf = {pdfs/alhazwani2025datahum.pdf},
images = {images/alhazwani2025datahum.png},
thumbnails = {images/alhazwani2025datahum_thumb.png},
}
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