Frank Elavsky (he/him) ⌁

The circular logic of our metrics We design what is familiar. The design patterns we adopt are the ones yelling at us the loudest.

99% of stakeholder "ideas" is just copying a feature they saw on a competitor's product. And the features they notice most are the ones that yell at their users the loudest.

Now all software (not just consumer apps, but also metrics dashboards) yells at you, and trains you to attend to its yelling.

In case you missed it: my full, free, open course on accessibility and visualization is out!

1.1 Introduction - Accessibility in Data Visualization - Open Visualization Academy

You can catch my full, open course on accessibility in visualization here:
openvisualizationacademy.org/courses/acce...

Auto-ethnographies and auto-bio desogn are close? But those tend to be individualistic and not about communities, groups, or teams...

Hmmm. I'm really curious about projects led by non-academics especially, since most of "participatory" and "co-" approaches often involve some outsider who wants to create generalizable knowledge.

I'm *really* interested in "local" knowledges, produced by people for themselves.

In case you missed it: my full, free, open course on accessibility and visualization is out!

There are community based and participatory approaches, which is awesome. But I'm also just curious for the broader spectrum of (even non-academic) sources, as well as everything from designerly approaches to self-innovation/auto-ethnography.

Cc'ing @perhaxis.bsky.social for ideas, perhaps?

The relationship of action research to human-computer interaction | ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction Alongside the growing interest within HCI, and arguably computing more generally, in conducting research that has substantial societal benefits, there is a need for new ways to think about and to arti...

Looking for deeper expertise:

I was re-reading this outstanding (seminal) piece by @gillianrh.bsky.social on action research in HCI, thanks to a convo with some recent non-academic collaborators.

What is action research up to now in HCI? I'm interested in epistemologies of "knowing by doing."

GM: Charisma check.

Mamdani: [rolls natural 20]

GM: that’s a d6 how did you

Mamdani: [direct to camera] Did you know you can check out board games at your local public library? 😊

With alt text

Jeff Bezos’s wealth has increased an average of $70 million every day of 2026, meaning that he could have offset The Post’s losses with what he’s made since Monday.

You probably shouldn’t be annotating focus order Sometimes not doing something is the right move.

I wrote about some nuance involved with annotating focus order, following a conversation with @annaecook.com where we realized we'd both been running across the same well-intentioned behaviors. #a11y ericwbailey.website/published/yo...

A template for accessible data visualizations: If data isn’t accessible and understandable, it isn’t helpful. We shifted our bar for success beyond providing high quality data, to making

hah! some have tried already, like the folks with the City of SF: medium.com/san-francisc...

😂

This kind of strategy not only is performative compliance but also demands repeated micro-labor from people with disabilities. Every single website requires additional interaction in order to gain basic, fundamental access? 1 click becomes 5. This adds up into a mountain of tedium and pain.

For the record, I hate being right. mantisandco.com/resources/gu...

Updated our long-list of resources on accessibility and visualization, including 2025 articles, guides, and technical tools!

(For those that don't know, this single-page doc is one of my most-starred projects on github.)

github.com/dataviza11y/...

Every day Mamdani comes out and is like "hey guys, I turned off the orphan-crushing machine. Literally just had to flip a switch. Took less than 5 minutes."

After decades of dem leadership pissing and moaning and fundraising about how complex an issue it is and how difficult the process is etc

Ah, love this one!

TEXT: I spent a couple hours last night, and a couple more today, reviewing countless photos from the massive protests around the country on Friday. Few people grasp the size, spread, and significance of these protests led by high school and college students. Legacy media can't adequately cover these events (even if they wanted to) so I'm going to give it a shot. To see spontaneous and organic protests organized by young people is to behold collective joy. I've reviewed thousands of images and videos. You don't see a single student scrolling their phone. They are living in the present and exuberant. They link arms, hug, and support each other.

Good morning... Not sure if folks can read the full post by Mark linked here since it's on FedBook but if you can, it's worth it to kick off a new week: www.facebook.com/mark.provost...

This single course might put "accessibility" in front of more students and learners than any other project, talk, or workshop I've done. I'm excited to see the growth in our community in the next few years.

This is one of the more hopeful things happening right now, which I really needed.

In case you missed it, I have a free, full, open course on accessibility and visualization that is part of the launch of the new Open Visualization Academy.

The course is packed!

And the OVA has over 300+ sign-ups already (which isn't even necessary!) as well as over 4000+ newsletter subs.

In case you missed it, we launched the Open Visualization Academy on Friday. Thread:

The data shown vs the whole picture.

This is another one for the "how charts can lie" slide deck.

I usually repost #dataViz and #dataJournalism I love. This by @jburnmurdoch.ft.com is excellent —but I don't like what it means...

Rotten Tomatoes page for Melania, with 11% from critics and 99% from, uh, audiences

Y’all wanna see bots try to throw a dead body over a wall

I don't like to talk about stories before they are fully reported, but I am writing on ICE in a Minnesota town that isn't Minneapolis. However bad you think it is, it is worse. It is a campaign of pure terror whose only strategic goal is more terror. There is no strategy other than to break people.

Abolish ICE and fire all agents is the moderate position.

I just completed my first course (thanks @frank.computer) from the Open Visualization Academy (OVA). I am in awe of the quality of the labor and care that went into building this free repository. What a beautiful gift. 📊