VizChitra 2025

Description
Conferences can be intense: Attending all kinds of sessions, finding the nerve to talk to people whose work you’ve fawned over, learning new things, and filling up your “To Learn” list. A dataviz conference full of nerds, meeting at such a scale in India for the first time is bound to be a lot (in the best way). But, it’s going to go by so fast. This proposal is an attempt to figure out how to help attendees engage with all the amazing things that will happen in two days in a more reflective way.

The VizChitra Data Trail starts with a postcard style template (can be both physical and digital) chalk full of simple prompts that encourage interaction, observation, and reflection. It’s not always easy to talk to people at a conference and this conference-long low-pressure activity can help spark conversation. Something like, “In the first session you attend, mark the place the person next to you is from.” At its core, the postcard can be a record of the small, meaningful moments that can be lost in the rush of a busy conference. It’s a personal artifact attendees can keep after VizChitra 2025 is over.

The format draws inspiration from multiple sources: personal data collection like Dear Data, marking things like Bingo, finding sources of inspiration like scavenger hunts, and creating location specific artifacts like the stamp books available at train stations across Japan. Each of these are playful systems of collecting moments, and each values process and presence as much as outcomes. I’d like to bring that same spirit to VizChitra—something that invites quiet participation and encourages attendees to notice, connect, and contribute in ways beyond formal sessions.

(If feasible, I’d like to make some handcrafted linocut stamps to mark milestones on the postcard, but the interaction design is flexible and meant to be accessible across formats.)

Takeways

1. The activity is a gentle way to encourage connection and observation. It’s a way to be a creative participant throughout the data visualization conference.
2. Participants leave with a visual relic that captures their experience.

Audience
This experience is open to all attendees—speakers, participants, volunteers, newbies, and veterans of dataviz. It’s suited for those who are curious, reflective, and enjoy small moments of creative data play.

Bio
Prakriti Bakshi is a Data Journalist at The Secretariat, a policy-focused newsroom in New Delhi. She’s a bit of a generalist and can write, research, design, and code. She loves and struggles with it all in equal measure. Prakriti is always looking for new ways to engage with data and the people who love it.