Data Memes for Personal Visualization

We introduce the concept of Data Memes as artistic visuals of data in which users can merge data visualizations with an image such that the structure of the image supports the user’s intended meaning (or interpretation) of the data. Since Data Memes can represent very personal views, it is natural to employ them in the visualization of personal data. Hence, in this paper we focus on the use of Data Memes for this purpose and also explain how they can be constructed with relative ease. Data Memes as a general concept are meant to engage users with the visualization and persuade a viewer to look at the data. Communicating personal achievements is often the wish of posters in social networks, and although we have not tested this yet, we believe that Data Memes augmented with pertinent personal data have good potential to achieve higher levels of attention in these circles, and elsewhere.