Measures of ambivalence in public opinion have grown in prominence in recent years within a variety of fields because of evidence that they may better represent how people hold opinions than traditional Likert-type scales. Rather than assume people hold only positive or negative feelings toward a person or issue, these measures assume positive and negative feelings may co-occur as mixed feelings. Using information visualization and interactive storytelling techniques, we aim to show a broad audience how ambivalence data might be interpreted and demonstrate the utility of measuring ambivalence. Our resulting visualization, MixedFeelings.us, shows data from a survey of undergraduates on 14 topics of public interest and uses design elements like small multiples and animation as well as brief narratives to illustrate core concepts.
['Galen Panger', 'Bryan Rea', 'Steven Weber']
Visualizing ambivalence: showing what mixed feelings look like