This chapter investigates the evaluation of data visualizations using observational research in an award-winning design studio. It outlines some professional and commercial forces that are involved in the shaping of evaluative strategies and identifies differences in methods and forms of evaluation in projects with different aims and intended audiences. The research showed that alongside quantitative headline figures of consumption, such as audience reach and interaction, qualitative measures of audience experience—which consider the sociocultural context of consumption—were sometimes included in evaluation strategies, but this varied between projects depending on the level of access to, and knowledge about, the audience. This chapter highlights the importance of such measures, outlines attempts to develop them, and comments on the potential to do so.

This research investigates how people engage with data visualizations when commenting on the social platform Reddit. There has been considerable research on collaborative sensemaking with visualizations and the personal relation of people with data. Yet, little is known about how public audiences without specific expertise and shared incentives openly express their thoughts, feelings, and insights in response to data visualizations. Motivated by the extensive social exchange around visualizations in online communities, this research examines characteristics and motivations of people's reactions to posts featuring visualizations. Following a Grounded Theory approach, we study 475 reactions from the /r/dataisbeautiful community, identify ten distinguishable reaction types, and consider their contribution to the discourse. A follow-up survey with 168 Reddit users clarified their intentions to react. Our results help understand the role of personal perspectives on data and inform future interfaces that integrate audience reactions into visualizations to foster a public discourse about data.

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