Visualizing Health and Healthcare Data

Chapter ThreeRequirements-Gathering and Design Methods

Approaching a data visualization project can feel like being trapped in a carnival house of mirrors—those maze-like puzzles that are designed to confuse people in unusual, humorous, sometimes frightening, even paralyzing ways that visually distort and cloak the unobstructed path through and out.

But creating data visualizations does not have to feel that way. Establishing a process grounded in user-centered requirements-gathering and design thinking concepts and methods helps illuminate the path toward useful, understandable, visually pleasing data displays.

Design Thinking Foundational Concepts

Design thinking is a process for creative problem-solving that is human-centered, empathetic, collaborative, experimental, and optimistic. The process is not linear, but usually includes these five steps:

1. Empathize. Take the time and make the effort to learn about and empathize with the people for whom a data display is being created. To be effective, the designer must on some level recognize what clients and end-users experience—how they complete their work and tasks; their actions, interactions, decision patterns, and routines.
2. Define. Seek informative and compelling insights in order to define the problem, challenge, or objective that a data display is intended to solve. This may include information about a person's scope and role or responsibilities within an organization: decisions needed; tasks to accomplish; pressing ...