Evaluating data visualization: broadening the measurements of success

This chapter investigates the evaluation of data visualizations using observational research in an award-winning design studio. It outlines some professional and commercial forces that are involved in the shaping of evaluative strategies and identifies differences in methods and forms of evaluation in projects with different aims and intended audiences. The research showed that alongside quantitative headline figures of consumption, such as audience reach and interaction, qualitative measures of audience experience—which consider the sociocultural context of consumption—were sometimes included in evaluation strategies, but this varied between projects depending on the level of access to, and knowledge about, the audience. This chapter highlights the importance of such measures, outlines attempts to develop them, and comments on the potential to do so.