Mapping Science: Overlapping Science and Design

Juan Burgos, MFA ’08

thesis abstract

Mapping Science documents the different steps in the elaboration of prototypes of interactive visualization tools for scientific data manipulation. The thesis focuses in the interaction between scientists and their data, and in the application of design principles to achieve better results when scientists organize, structure, input, store, and visualize scientific data.

Mapping Science relies on a Ph. D. thesis on bat behavior to assess its needs and to study scientific thinking processes that are later compared to those used by visual thinkers. The goal is to demonstrate the importance of visual thinking processes in the creation of hypotheses and the exploration of data.

Download “Mapping Science: Overlapping Science and Design” (PDF, 5 MB).