With the importance of visual communication on the rise, there are new moral obligations and expectations for data software designers.
Since the rise of the Internet, information has increasingly been transferred in a visual and interactive way. With a new emphasis on visual communication, users are obtaining more control over data design, signaling a exchange of power from the designer to the user. In turn, the user has not only a greater influence on the rhetoric of data design, but new ethical responsibilities as well.
Charles Kostelnick, a professor of English at Iowa State University, examines various aspects of the rhetoric of visual display. He looks at different types of rhetoric and how they approach the issues of perspective and clarity. For instance, he looks at the rhetoric of science and its emphasis on efficiency; this type of rhetoric upholds the idea that audiences are universal and aims to give “the viewer the greatest number of ideas in the shortest time with the least ink the the smallest space”(116).
However, Kostelnick notes that there is a crucial problem with this approach. Clarity, especially with the evolution of technology, is not a single faceted idea: “Far from being simple and straightforward, clarity in data design is multifaceted and sometimes ambiguous and elusive concept”(128). Kostelnick maintains that the rhetoric of data design includes the rhetoric of adaptation which “celebrates that different readers have different interpretive frameworks that profoundly influence what they find clear and credible in date displays”(119). The rhetoric of adaptation explores the historical, cultural, and social context of data design, further complicating the definition of clarity.
Kostelnick also addresses the participatory culture of the Internet and how that has affected data design. Due to the fact that the interpretation of data is a “largely social act”(121), the art of data design also becomes a community based discussion. From this perspective, the definition of clarity changes:
“If we regard data displays as socially constructed conventions, clarity depends on readers’ experiences in disciplines and organizations but also as members of public discourse communities that enculturate readers in forms of data visualization through schools, popular culture and news media”(121).
Kostelnick also emphasizes the change of power in data design. Because of the social nature of data design rhetoric, the power of the data design has been transferred to the users. According to Kostelnick, this creates opportunities for users to change the norms for visual literacy, allowing for older and previously deemed difficult types of data displays to regain relevance.
Although the transfer of influence from the designer to the user has its benefits, there is also a new set of issues and responsibilities that fall upon the user as they embrace their roles as designers.
One of the most intriguing things that I took from Kostelnick’s article is the idea of moral obligation on the part of the designer.Because of graphs and data are often associated with scientific or statistical fact, readers often place faith and trust into these graphical designs. Kostelnick describes this issue as an “ethical component”(118) within the discussion of rhetoric data design:
“This rational, efficent rhetoric of data design embodies an intrinsic ethical component because it implies that readers deserve a full, unadulterated disclosure of the date and that designers have a moral imperative to provide it”(118).
This idea of moral obligation, coupled with the fact that the population of visual data designers is increasingly including users of the Internet, creates a problem. Can there really be an expectation for users to uphold their moral responsibilities when it comes to graphical design? With tutorials and programs, it is easy for anyone with a computer to create a graph. With a wider use of these programs along with the significant increase and importance of visual design within the participatory nature of the Internet, readers will need to take extra caution while interpreting visual data. Credibility is now a significant issue in the rhetoric of data design. Every graph or statistic on the Internet needs to be considered carefully; because of the transfer of power from the designers to the users, the credibility and trustworthiness of graphs and statistics needs to be put under surveillance.