Assistant Professor Danielle Szafir has relocated to the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and the VisuaLab has officially closed. Since some of the projects and people involved with the lab remain part of ATLAS, this page remains online in our archives.

The VisuaLab, headed by Danielle Albers Szafir, explores the intersection of data science, visual cognition, and computer graphics. Our goal is to model how people make sense of visual information to create better interfaces for exploring and understanding information. We work with scholars from psychology to biology to the humanities to design and implement visualization systems that help drive innovation across a variety of platforms and domains. Our ultimate mission is to facilitate the dialogue between people and technologies that leads to discovery.

VisuaLab

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Lab Director

Photo of Danielle Szafir
Danielle Szafir
Assistant Professor of Computer Science, UNC Chapel Hill • Former ATLAS faculty member

In the News

Sandra Bae
Sandra Bae receives ARCS and KASF scholarships

Sept. 8, 2021

ATLAS PHD Student Sandra Bae recently received a $6,500 Achievement Reward for College Scientists (ARCS) Scholarship for the 2021-2022 academic year on behalf of CU Boulder's College of Engineering & Applied Science. In early August, Bae also received a $2,000 scholarship from the Korean American Scholarship Foundation (KASF). ARCS ®...

Chi logo of waves
ATLAS @ CHI 2021

May 14, 2021

ATLAS researchers have 10 published works and one special interest group associated with the CHI 2021 conference, the world’s preeminent conference for the field of human-computer interaction. Held virtually, CHI 2021, also known as ACM’s Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, took place May 8-13.

illustration of various types of charts and graphs
Data accessibility: Leveling the field for those with intellectual and developmental disabilities

May 10, 2021

In a world where decisions of all kinds are based on statistical information, maximizing access to data is more important than ever. However, a recent study finds that common practices may be cutting large portions of the population out of the picture.

Associated Researchers

Tahmina Ahmad
Tahmina Ahmad
BS Comp Sci'22
Computer Science
Mary Etta West
Mary Etta West
PhD Student • Visual Lab
Computer Science
Emma Petersen
Emma Petersen
MS, CTD—Creative Industries '21
ATLAS Institute
Pratik Revankar in front of a lake and forested mountains in the background.
Pratik Revankar
MS Student
Computer Science
Kaiya Wahl
Kaiya Wahl
BS, CTD–Creative Technology and Design '21
ATLAS Institute
Matt Whitlock with a winter hat on in front of trees
Matt Whitlock
PhD Student
Computer Science
Keke Wu
Keke Wu
MS, TMS—Creative Technologies + Design '19
ATLAS Institute

Alumni

David Burlinson
David Burlinson
Information Science

Publications

  • Bae, S.,ÌýZheng, C.,ÌýWest, M.E.,ÌýDo, E.Y., Huron, S., &ÌýSzafir, D.A.Ìý(2022). Making Data Tangible: A Cross-disciplinary Design Space for Data Physicalization.ÌýArXiv, abs/2202.10520.
  • Sandra Bae,ÌýRuhan Yang,ÌýPeter Gyory,ÌýJulia Uhr,ÌýDanielle Albers Szafir, Ellen Yi-Luen Do.ÌýTouching Information with DIY Paper Charts & AR Markers, (2021)ÌýinÌý, June 2021ÌýPages 433–438, 24 June 2021,Ìý
  • M. WhitlockÌý&ÌýD. Albers Szafir.Ìý2021.ÌýImmersive Design Reviews through Situated Qualitative Feedback. InÌýEvaluating User Experiences in Mixed Reality Workshop at the 2021 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2021).Ìý(Yokohama, Japan–May 8-13, 2021). .
  • W. Payne, Y. Bergner,ÌýM. West,ÌýC. Charp, R. B. Shapiro,ÌýD. Albers Szafir, E. Taylor, & K. DesPortes. 2021. danceON: Culturally Responsive Creative Computing for Data Literacy. InÌýProceedings of the 2021 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2021)/ÌýYokohama, Japan–May 8-13, 2021)Ìý[Best Paper Honorable Mention]. DOI:.
  • K. Wu, E. Petersen, T. Ahmad, D. Burlinson, E. S. Tanis, & D. Albers Szafir. 2021. Understanding Data Accessibility for People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. In Proceedings of the 2021 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ‘21).Ìý(Yokohama, Japan–May 8-13, 2021). DOI: . [Best Paper Award]. .
  • S. Sandra BaeÌýandÌýMary Etta West. 2021. Cyborg Crafts: Second SKIN (Soft Keen INteraction). InÌýProceedings of the Fifteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction (TEI '21). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 87, 1–3. DOI:Ìý(Salzburg, Austria (virtual) Feb. 14-19, 2021).
  • M. Elliott, C. Xiong, C. Nothelfer, & D. Albers Szafir. 2021. A Design Space of Vision Science Methods for Visualization Research. (to appear) In IEEE Transactions on Visualization.
  • K. Reda & D. Albers Szafir.Ìý 2021. Rainbows Revisited: Modeling Effective Colormap Design for Graphical Inference. (to appear) In IEEE Transactions on Visualization.
  • M. Whitlock, D. Albers Szafir, & Kenny Gruchalla. 2020. HydrogenAR: Interactive Data-Driven Storytelling for Dispenser Reliability. In Proceedings of the International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR), (Virtual–Nov. 9-13, 2020).
  • M. Shi, D. Albers Szafir, & E. Alexander. 2020. A Survey of Data and Encodings in Word Clouds.ÌýPresented atÌýDigital Humanities (Ottawa, Canada (virtual)– July 22-24, 2020). DOI:
  • Whitlock M.,ÌýMitchell J., Pfeufer N., Arnot B., Craig R., Wilson B., Chung B., &ÌýDanielle Albers Szafir.ÌýÌý2020.ÌýMRCAT: In Situ Prototyping of Interactive AR Environments.ÌýInternational Conference on Virtual and Mixed Reality (VAMR 2020). (Copenhagen, Denmark, July 22-24, 2020).
  • David Burlinson &ÌýDanielle Albers Szafir. 2020. Shape size judgments are influenced by fill and contour closure.ÌýInÌýProceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Vision Sciences Society, (St. Pete Beach, Florida (virtual) –June 19-24, 2020).
  • M. Whitlock,ÌýS. SmartÌýandÌýD. A. Szafir.Ìý2020.ÌýGraphical Perception for Immersive Analytics,Ìý2020 IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR), Atlanta, GA, USA, 2020, pp. 616-625, doi: . (Atlanta, Georgia (virtual)–March 22-26, 2020).Ìý[Best Paper Nominee]
  • Whitlock M.,ÌýMitchell J., Pfeufer N., Arnot B., Craig R., Wilson B., Chung B., &ÌýDanielle Albers SzafirÌý(2020) MRCAT: In Situ Prototyping of Interactive AR Environments. In: Chen J., Fragomeni G. (eds) Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality. Design and Interaction. HCII 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 12190. Springer, Cham. DOI: .
  • Muyang Shi,ÌýDanielle Albers SzafirÌý& Eric Alexander. "A Survey of Data and Encodings in Word Clouds." Digital Humanities, 2020.
  • Matt Whitlock,ÌýKeke Wu, &ÌýDanielle Albers Szafir. 2019. Designing for Mobile and Immersive Visual Analytics in the Field.ÌýTransactions on Visualization & Computer Graphics, 2020. InÌýProceedings of IEEE VIS 2019.Ìý(Vancouver, Canada–Oct.Ìý20-25, 2019). DOI:
  • Stephen Smart,ÌýKeke WuÌý&ÌýDanielle Albers Szafir. 2019. Color Crafting: Automating the Construction of Designer Quality Color Ramps.ÌýTransactions on Visualization & Computer Graphics.ÌýInÌýProceedings of IEEE VIS 2019.Ìý(Vancouver, Canada–Oct.Ìý20-25, 2019). DOI:
  • H. Muthukrishnan & D. Albers Szafir. 2019. Using Machine Learning and Visualization for Qualitative Inductive Analyses of Big Data. Machine Learning from User Interaction (MLUI) at IEEE VIS 2019. (Vancouver, Canada–Oct. 20-25, 2019).
  • KekeÌýWu, SheaÌýTanis, andÌýDanielleÌýSzafir. 2019. Designing Communicative Visualization for People with Intellectual Developmental Disabilities. Visualization for Communication (VisComm) at IEEE VIS 2019.ÌýDOI:.Ìý(Vancouver, Canada–Oct. 20-25 2019).
  • Pruss, D., Fujinuma, Y., Daughton, A.R., Paul, M.J., Arnot, B.,ÌýSzafir, D.A., & Boyd-Graber, J. (2019). Zika discourse in the Americas: A multilingual topic analysis of Twitter.ÌýPLoS ONE, 14. DOI:
  • E. S. Tanis,ÌýD. Albers Szafir, &ÌýK. Wu. Accessible Data: Understanding Visualization Literacy and Graphical Perceptions of People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. Presented at AAIDD, 2019. (Twin Cities, Minnesota–June 24-27, 2019). DOI: .
  • Stephen Smart and Danielle Albers Szafir. 2019. Measuring the Separability of Shape, Size, and Color in Scatterplots. In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '19). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Paper 669, 1–14. DOI:Ìý(Glasgow, UK – May 4-9, 2019).
  • M. WhitlockÌý&ÌýD. Albers Szafir. 2019. Situated Prototyping of Data-Driven Applications in Augmented Reality.ÌýInÌýInteraction Design and Prototyping for Immersive AnalyticsÌý(CHI '19). (Glasgow, UK–May 4-9, 2019).
  • J. Muesing, L. Burks, M. Iuzzolino, J. Hatlelid, D. Albers Szafir, & N. Ahmed. 2019. Fully Bayesian Human-Machine Data Fusion for Robust Dynamic Target Surveillance and Characterization. AIAA SciTech Forum. (San Diego, California–Jan. 7-11,Ìý2019). DOI:
  • H. Song and D. A. Szafir, "Where's My Data? Evaluating Visualizations with Missing Data," in IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 914-924, Jan. 2019, doi: 10.1109/TVCG.2018.2864914.
  • Szafir DA. Modeling Color Difference for Visualization Design. IEEE Trans Vis Comput Graph. 2018 Jan;24(1):392-401. doi: 10.1109/TVCG.2017.2744359. Epub 2017 Aug 29. PMID: 28866544.
  • Sarikaya, A., Gleicher, M., &ÌýSzafir, D. A. 2018. Design Factors for Summary Visualization in Visual Analytics. Computer Graphics Forum, 37(3), 145–156.Ìý

Additional publications