Merits and Limits of Preregistration for Visualization Research

Abstract

The replication crisis has spawned a revolution in scientific methods, aimed at increasing the transparency, robustness, and reliability of scientific outcomes. In particular, the practice of preregistering study designs has shown important advantages. Preregistration can help limit questionable research practices, as well as increase the success rate of study replications. Many fields have now adopted preregistration as a default expectation for published studies. In 2022, we set up a panel "Merits and Limits of User Study Preregistration" with the overall goal of explaining the concept of preregistration to a wide VIS audience and discussing its suitability for visualization research. We report on the arguments and discussion of this panel in the hope that it can benefit the visualization community at large. All materials and a copy of this paper are available on our OSF repository at https://osf.io/wes57/.