How Digital Humanities projects use data visualisation and why it matters

What is it about?

Digital Humanities (DH) research increasingly relies on information visualisation to communicate and provide access to complex datasets and collections. But how are these tools actually used in practice? We analysed 186 web-based DH dissemination projects, examining them across five dimensions, including the visualisation techniques they employ, the interactions they support, how they structure narratives, how they represent uncertainty, and whether they critically adapt visual solutions to the specificities of humanistic data. The results show a clear picture. The DH landscape is dominated by maps, and the vast majority of projects rely on a narrow set of out-of-the-box charting solutions—convenient, but often not designed to reflect the complexity and interpretive nature of humanistic knowledge. Moreover, only one in four projects incorporates any narrative strategy, and fewer than one in six attempts to visualise uncertainty or ambiguity in the data. Overall, the field shows substantial room for growth towards the use of more critical and epistemologically aware visualisations that reflect the typical complexity of humanistic inquiry.

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Photo by Martin Sanchez on Unsplash

Photo by Martin Sanchez on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Our findings reveal the mismatch between the rich theoretical debate around humanistic visualisation and what practitioners actually build, reporting on where the most urgent gaps lie. Scholars have long argued that humanities data is situated, uncertain, and interpreted, and that visualisations should reflect this "knowledge status". Our survey shows this argument has had very little impact on real projects. This matters because uncritical reuse of generic tools is not just an aesthetic problem but an epistemological one. When visualisations oversimplify or flatten humanistic complexity, they risk constraining interpretation rather than enabling it. Our results therefore offer an evidence-based foundation for researchers and practitioners who want to better exploit information visualisation to communicate and disseminate Digital Humanities research.