Collaborating in Conceptual Spaces: How Data Visualization Facilitated by JavaScript Can Improve Interdisciplinary Design Projects

This paper explains the methods and reasoning behind the creation of Simple NetInt, a custom-made JavaScript library designed to facilitate collaboration in conceptual spaces. As design researchers increasingly partner with collaborators in the humanities, the need for visualizing datasets to support conceptual elucidation, critical discourse analysis, and narrative inquiry are often needed. Two case studies are examined in this paper that involve the use of Simple NetInt to positively affect interdisciplinary design collaborations that required the visual transformation of complex datasets into a dynamic narrative that recounted the development of research projects on computer browsers, and across a large mural imbued with 2D, 3D, and augmented reality (AR) components. Reflections on each of these projects yielded questions that sought to examine how the framework of conceptual spaces could 1) better inform spatial thinking and 2) create actionable knowledge to guide the design of data-driven, embodied data experiences. The paper concludes with potential design uses for Simple NetInt in collaborative research and reviews the future potential of data-driven libraries in complex design projects in and out of the classroom.