Abstract
In this provocation we ask the visualization research community to join us in removing chartjunk from our research lexicon. We present an etymology of chartjunk, framing its provocative origins as misaligned, and harmful, to the ways the term is currently used by visualization researchers. We call on the community to dissolve chartjunk from the ways we talk about, write about, and think about the graphical devices we design and study. As a step towards this goal we contribute a performance of maintenance through a trio of acts: editing the Wikipedia page on chartjunk, cutting out chartjunk from IEEE papers, and scanning and posting a repository of the pages with chartjunk removed to invite the community to re-imagine how we describe visualizations. This contribution blurs the boundaries between research, activism, and maintenance art, and is intended to inspire the community to join us in taking out the trash.
Citation
Jack Wilburn,
Main T. Nance,
Manifesto for Putting 'Chartjunk' in the Trash 2021!
alt.VIS, a workshop co-located with IEEE VIS, 2021.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank the Visualization Design Lab for inspiring conversations that sparked the genesis of this paper, Mierle Laderman Ukeles for maintenance art and art maintenance, and for all of the people out there dedicated to maintenance work, even when it is a drag. This work is partially funded by the National Science Foundation (OAC 1835904), and by the Wallenberg AI, Autonomous Systems and Software Program (WASP) funded by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation.