DataVisFest on Visualizing (In)equality and Inclusion
More than 20 participants from diverse backgrounds including graduate and PhD students from both ECA and Informatics took part in the DataVisFest.
The event ran from 16th to 18th March as a fringe event to the DataFest Edinburgh, posing the question of how to make data about inequality and inclusion understandable and more engaging through data visualizations.
This visualization maker and hackathon was aimed in addressing challenges that were provided by institutions such as the Scottish Government, NHR, Marie Curie and others. Representatives of each institution attended the kick-off event to present their data and challenges for data visualization.
Saturday started with a brief visualization sketching session, followed by workshops on D3.js, physical visualization, data analysis in python, as well as visualization in augmented and virtual reality. The rest of the weekend was structured through design sprints and open group work. The final projects involved a range of approaches to visualization: physical visualizations and visualization in augmented reality, data visualization in python, approaches to visualization-based mobile games, analytics employing hierarchical clustering, as well as a concept for presenting with data visualizations at a conference booth.
The DatavisFest was organised by the School of Informatics (Benjamin Bach, Cat Magill, Ewan Klein) and Design Informatics (Dave Murray-Rust).
The organizers would like to thank everyone involved: those attending for their spirit and creativity, the data holders for providing data and challenges, Doreen Grove from the Scottish Government for the keynote, those preparing and leading the workshops. The event was sponsored by the School of Informatics, SICSA, the Urban Big Data Center in Glasgow, the Scottish Government, IAD as well as Design Informatics.