VIPP in 2008–2010 archive (Academy of Finland decision No. 123445)

VIPP explored how colours are used in project visualisations. The core question was how relevant factors cultures and ‘human universals’ are in project visualisations. The research was made in the context of Design for all (DfA, universal or inclusive design) which is a proactive approach to the design of products, services and environments to be as usable and as accessible by as many people as possible regardless of age, ability, culture or situation. Design research methodology was used to merge best practices of media and technology visualisations to develop inclusion of diverse participants of varying cultures in global media projects.
Media industry needs collaborative and innovative methods for management of complex productions (Kottolli 2006). Different task-related visualisations aim to compress extensive information of productions for a global audience, although Tufte (2002) argues that e.g. standard Gantt chart tend to be analytically too thin and simple. Studies have found evidence that even the rainbow could be seen through cultural lenses, and local cultures affect the way people visualise knowledge thus making collaboration challenging (Dedrick 1998; Nisbett 2003). The eye-tracking experiments by Namatame & al. (2006, 2004) demonstrate behavioural differences between hearing-impaired and hearing persons when using web-based educational materials, which might suggest that the design of web-based materials is insufficient for the hearing-impaired. Yet Berlin and Kay (1969), MacLaury (1997) and Kay and Regier (2003) argue that the hue categories of colour are more biologically rather than linguistically based by the congruence between adult human colour-naming data and colour categorisation by human infants as well as other primates. Zeki (2000) argues that any theory of aesthetics must be based in neurobiology. The results from the research on sub cortical emotional and motivational systems that all mammals share (Panksepp & Panksepp 2000) will be incorporated to create understanding of “human nature” in visual design.