Videos

Quantitative Ethnography Visualizations as Tools for Thinking

All research must give form to data and insights. Visualizations serve as cognitive extensions that assist researchers not only in exploring their data, but in communicating findings to colleagues and broader audiences. Especially in data-intensive fields, widely used software tools define, and are defined by, research communities; you can't fully participate in a community until you can wield its tools responsibly. In an emerging field like Quantitative Ethnography (QE), inventing its own tools, how we model and map the world are therefore defining characteristics, and merit critical reflection. QE's principles currently find fullest expression in Epistemic Network Analysis (ENA). It's fair to say that the interest in ENA is attributable not only to the power of its data modelling and analysis, but also to the engaging, interactive visualizations it generates. Inspired by the ways I see ENA used, in this talk I bring my background in Human-Computer Interaction and the design of tools for working with conceptual structures, as a lens on ENA and other QEgenerated visuals. When we consider in detail how external representations serve as personal and shared cognitive tools, this illuminates current and future techniques for presenting QE analyses. A data-storytelling lens asks how the audience will engage with our insights, while participatory methods ask whether we cast them as passive recipients or active agents in validating those narratives. Moreover, as QE analyses begin to underpin new tools designed for people other than QE researchers, human-centred design should give voice to non-technical stakeholders. These lenses could point to a future in which visualization tools evolve to scaffold more participatory forms of sensemaking as an important hallmark of how QE models and narrates the world.