A Card Deck to Create, Critique, Calibrate, and Curate Urban Data Visualizations

The Urban Data Visualization (UDV) card deck – a tool to spark discussions and guide the design of urban data visualizations. The UDV cards were crafted to make it easier to connect theory with practice, especially in collaborative workshop settings. Each card distills essential considerations from urban visualization design, offering a structured yet flexible way to explore different aspects of your projects. Whether you're new to urban data or already working in the field, the UDV card deck is here to support your creative process and help you make well-informed design decisions.

UDV cards spread in hand.

How to use the UDV card deck

Engage with the UDV card deck through different activities that guide you from analyzing and designing urban visualizations to refining concepts and organizing inspirations. Detailed instructions for each are available below.

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Downloads

Adapt and Participate

Check out our Github Repo for ways of adapting the cards to your needs.

If you or your workshop participants want to give feedback, please feel free to use our evaluation form (PDF).

Literature

Çay, D. Nagel, T. & Meier, S. (2025). The UDV Card Deck: A Collaborative Design Framework to Facilitate Urban Visualization Conversations. IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications (CG&A). DOI: 10.1109/MCG.2025.3556573 (upcoming)

The cards are based on the previous work by the researchers behind the CityVis initiative: Goodwin, S., Meier, S., Bartram, L., Godwin, A., Nagel, T., & Dörk, M. (2021). Unravelling the human perspective and considerations for urban data visualization. IEEE 14th Pacific Visualization Symposium (PacificVis) (pp. 126-130). DOI: 10.1109/PacificVis52677.2021.00024

Team

Contact

If you have any questions don't hesitate contacting us.

License

The cards are published under an open license. See the GitHub repo for more details. The photos of the card deck were taken by Vivienne Richmond. We welcome interest in their use; please note that permission is required, as these images are copyright protected.