A Design Space to Characterize Creativity in Visualization Design

Characterizing creativity in visualization design can lead to the design of more expressive representations and visualization authoring tools that prioritize human creativity. In this paper, we examine how creativity manifests itself in visualization design processes. Through a systematic review of 58 papers, we develop a design space to characterize creativity in visualization design. Our findings show that the prior literature predominantly used atypical designs through free-form drawings, infographics, pictorials, and data comics to define creative representations. However, creativity in visualization extends beyond visual representations to encompass design activities such as sketching, storyboarding, and discussion, and supporting other creative tasks (e.g., fiction writing). We discuss the implications of these findings for fostering innovation within established design paradigms and for developing more sophisticated visualization authoring systems. The full list of coded papers is available here: https://vizcreativity.notion.site/coded-papers.