People generate and consume a significant amount of data in their daily lives. Such data holds great promise for empowering people in work, social, and personal contexts. Even though data visualization has proven to be a powerful means to understand and communicate data, visualization research has traditionally focused on limited aspects of how people interact with data, leaving out broader audiences who could also benefit from innovations in visualization research. I see great opportunities to make practical impacts in everyone’s daily life by providing better and easier access to their data. I argue that we should design and develop for a broader scope of activities and contexts people engage in with data, as well as the audience who perform such activities. In this talk, I will present research projects in four areas—data-driven storytelling, natural interaction for data visualization, mobile data visualization, and human-data interaction for self-monitoring—I have explored to enable people to collect, understand, and communicate their data more effectively and efficiently. I will also suggest exciting research opportunities in enriching data interaction experiences for a broader audience.

Bongshin Lee is a Senior Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research. She conducts research on data visualization, human-computer interaction, and human-data interaction, striving to empower people to achieve their goals by leveraging data, visualization, and technological advancements. Lee explores innovative ways to help people interact with data, by supporting easy and effective data collection, data exploration & analysis, and data-driven communication. She is the Chair of the IEEE VGTC (Visualization and Graphics Technical Community) and a member of the ACM ISS Steering Committee. Lee was inducted into the IEEE Visualization Academy in 2020 and served as a member of the IEEE Visualization Executive Committee in 2021 and 2022. She also served as the General Co-Chair for ISS 2019 and IEEE PacificVis 2017, Overall Papers Co-Chair for IEEE VIS 2021 & 2022, Subcommittee Co-Chair for ACM CHI 2021 & 2022 (for the Visualization Subcommittee), and Papers Co-Chair for IEEE InfoVis 2015 & 2016, and IEEE PacificVis 2018. Lee received her PhD in Computer Science from the University of Maryland at College Park in 2006.