Visual analytics: transferring, translating and transforming knowledge from analytics experts to non-technical domain experts in multidisciplinary teams

Today’s complex problems call for multidisciplinary analytics teams comprising of both analytics and non-technical domain (i.e. subject matter) experts. Recognizing the difference between data visualisaion (DV) (i.e. static visual outputs) and visual analytics (VA) (i.e. a process of interactive visual data exploration, guided by user’s domain and contextual knowledge), this paper focuses on VA for non-technical domain experts. By seeking to understand knowledge sharing from VA experts to non-technical users of VA in a multidisciplinary team, we aim to explore how these domain experts learn to use VA as a thinking tool, guided by their knowing-in-practice. The research described in this paper was conducted in the context of a long-term industry-wide research project called the ‘Visual Historical Atlas of the Australian Co-operatives’, led by a multidisciplinary VA team who faced the challenge tackled by this research. Using Action Design Research (ADR) and the combined theoretical lens of boundary objects and secondary design, the paper theorises a three-phase method for knowledge transfer, translation and transformation from VA experts to domain experts using different types of VA-related boundary objects. Together with the proposed set of design principles, the three-phase model advances the well-established stream of research on organizational use of analytics, extending it to the emerging area of visual analytics for non-technical decision makers.