Critical Visual Analysis of Graphic Expressions of Emotions Over Time

This presentation challenges designers to enact more nuanced data collection and meaningful visual synthesis of emotions represented over time in experience maps. A critical visual analysis of current methods used for mapping emotions and changes over time plus an examination of broader means of visually expressing a multitude of emotions and intensities can be useful in identifying alternative models.

Design teams use storyboards and experience maps to synthesize research visually. These maps are intended to foster empathy, aid in the understanding of existing conditions, help identify pain points, and support consensus-building in the design of improved product and service offerings. Changes in intensity of vaguely identified emotions on the y-axis are mapped over simplified time phases along the x-axis with +/- values marked via emoticons and color shifts. Conventions from literature inform journeys based on highs/lows of narrative arcs.

What can we learn from other models and fields to enrich research synthesis/visualization connecting storytelling (qualitative) and data (quantitative)? How can we better use information design principles to explain complex experiences, expose narratives, patterns, and relationships across time? How can we ensure that the data collection and representations are not oversimplified, based on insufficient data, or used to justify biases and preconceptions?

As orchestrators and designers of product ecosystems and services, we need to engage robust means to understand and plan (score) the narratives and data representing the many variables of human experience. This work is part of an ongoing investigation of notational systems and historical and innovative mapping of experiences.