Beyond Data Visualization: Designing (Cognitive) Experiences
The field where visualization meets data and information is a turbulent arena nowadays: academic conferences open the doors of their scientific shelters to companies, professionals and artists; a number of different disciplines converge, sometimes overlap and clash, urged by the need to make sense of the growing amount of data available. Journalists, scholars from disciplines like humanities and sociology, lawyers, managers, policy makers, activists, citizens: these are just some examples of the (new) categories of users we met in our research activities. All of them are excited by the opportunities behind the accessibility of data and information; from one side they are enthusiastic for the role visualization can have in their knowledge processes; on the other side, they bring their own peculiar needs, seeking often for non standard solutions. The more one try to understand their points of view, the more is evident that visualization is just one of the many dimensions - or components - of a possible solution. And even in the visual(ization) dimension, new challenges are emerging, without yet convincing answers. If designers want to address these diverse needs they should embrace a more complex approach, that seek to design a consistent (cognitive) experience towards data and information instead of focusing only on visualization issues.
This conference is organized in partnership with the BEP.
Associate Professor at Politecnico di Milano, he teaches at the Faculty of Design in the Communication Design master degree. He has been visiting lecturer at Universidad de Malaga and The Royal Institute of Art (KKH – Stockholm) and participated to several postgraduate courses in other universities.
Since 2000 he represents the Faculty of Design in the European program "MEDes" (Master in European Design).
Head of the Communication Design Research group and member of the Design PhD board, both at Politecnico di Milano – Design Department. His research and publishing activities focus on the development of data, information and knowledge visualization tools and methods to support decision making processes in complex systems.
He's founder and scientific coordinator of POLIteca, the Design Knowledge Centre of Politecnico di Milano.
