From talk back to tag clouds: Social media, information visualization and design

Talk back is a concept defined by Schon in his now classic study of the design studio. This paper draws upon the concept of talk back to reflectively consider the implications of social media and specifically tag cloud visualizations on design research and practice. Information visualizations were once most commonly associated with researchers with scholarly and/or design expertise. Tag clouds represent a form of visualization that is more publicly accessible for non-experts to produce. In this paper, I explore tag clouds as a new way to support talk back as part of the designer's reflective practice. I also consider how the boundary between designers and end-users may blur within the social media context.