I am pleased to share the launch of a new website for the Visual Peer Review project: visualpeerreview.org.
Visual Peer Review is a project that has grown out of our work on visualization education, peer assessment, and the teaching of critical visual judgment. The central idea is simple: people should not only learn how to create visualizations, but also how to evaluate them carefully. In many educational and professional settings, visualizations are used to communicate data, support decisions, and make arguments. However, the ability to critique visual work is just as important as the ability to produce it.
The Visual Peer Review system was developed to support this process. It combines a structured visualization rubric with a peer-review workflow that allows participants to evaluate visual work produced by others. The goal is to move beyond general comments such as “good job” or “nice graph” and toward more specific, evidence-based feedback about labeling, scales, legends, visual clarity, data-ink ratio, chartjunk, and other visualization design principles.
The new website provides a central location for the project. It includes a live demonstration of the Visual Peer Review experience, information about the rubric, related publications, funding support, and examples of how the system can be used in teaching, research, and professional evaluation.
This project is also connected to a broader research question that has shaped much of our recent work: how can we design environments that help people become better evaluators of visual information? In an era where visual displays are increasingly used to communicate data, arguments, and decisions, people need more than technical skills. They need the ability to judge whether a visualization is clear, honest, effective, and appropriate for its intended purpose.
I would also like to acknowledge the support of the National Science Foundation (NSF), the University of South Florida (USF), and the University of Utah. Their support has been important in the development of this project and in advancing research on visual peer review, visualization education, and critical visual judgment.
You can visit the new website here: visualpeerreview.org.