Demographically Diverse Anthropographics: Exploring Equitable Visual Representations of Diversity

Dhawka, Priyadarshinee

Demographically Diverse Anthropographics: Exploring Equitable Visual Representations of Diversity

dc.contributor.advisor	Willett, Wesley
dc.contributor.author	Dhawka, Priyadarshinee
dc.contributor.committeemember	Wu, Leanne
dc.contributor.committeemember	Messier, Geoffrey
dc.contributor.committeemember	Henry, Ryan
dc.date	2023-11
dc.date.accessioned	2023-08-03T19:32:52Z
dc.date.available	2023-08-03T19:32:52Z
dc.date.issued	2023-07
dc.description.abstract	In this thesis, we explore the design of demographically diverse anthropographics from demographic data. Anthropographics are visualizations that often use generic human-shaped symbols as abstract representations of humans. These visualizations are frequently used to convey the human importance of data related to people’s experiences, usually focusing on demographic data such as age, gender, race among others. However, most current anthropographics employ generic human shapes to represent data about distinct demographic groups, which can hide important demographic and physical differences between these groups. The use of generic human shapes in current anthropographics highlights the lack of inclusive approaches for representing human physical diversity in data visualizations. In response,we explore the creation of demographically diverse anthropographics that communicate the visible physical diversity of demographically-distinct populations. Our contributions stem from a set of critical design explorations for visualizing demographic data with a focus on representing human physical diversity and a study exploring how viewers perceive visual representations of diversity in anthropographics. We make three contributions in this work. First, we describe critical design explorations from two prototypes for representing racial demographic data as physical characteristics of diversity (such as skin tones) in diverse anthropographics. Second, we explore how viewers may perceive visual representations of demographic diversity in anthropographics through an interview study on contemporary examples of homogeneous anthropographics from popular news media and our own set of diverse anthropographics. Finally, we identify a set of social and technical challenges in the creation of anthropographics and contribute a collection of forward-looking opportunities for advancing this line of research on equitable visual representations of diversity through demographically diverse anthropographics.
dc.identifier.citation	Dhawka, P. (2023). Demographically diverse anthropographics: exploring equitable visual representations of diversity (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/1880/116824
dc.identifier.uri	https://dx.doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/41666
dc.language.iso	en
dc.publisher.faculty	Science
dc.publisher.institution	University of Calgary
dc.rights	University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.
dc.subject	Diverse Anthropographics
dc.subject	Equity
dc.subject	Demographic Data
dc.subject	Diversity
dc.subject	Anthropographics
dc.subject.classification	Computer Science
dc.title	Demographically Diverse Anthropographics: Exploring Equitable Visual Representations of Diversity
dc.type	master thesis
thesis.degree.discipline	Computer Science
thesis.degree.grantor	University of Calgary
thesis.degree.name	Master of Science (MSc)
ucalgary.thesis.accesssetbystudent	I do not require a thesis withhold – my thesis will have open access and can be viewed and downloaded publicly as soon as possible.