Frank ⌁

frankelavsky@vis.social

Presently PhD candidate studying tool-making for vis 📊 @hcii.cmu.edu. Prev: Adobe, Highsoft, Apple, Visa. Fall 2026: assistant prof @ Cal Poly.Researching: Softer-ware (malleability), accessibility, data interaction.In my spare time I'm writing a tabletop rpg (at 400+ pages currently).Disabled, anti-fascist, queer, and trying to be less online these days.

Posts

Post #1814178
Hello wonderful folks on the fediverse! You&#39;re welcome to attend my thesis defense on April 29th at 12 noon EDT. It&#39;s public and hybrid! (No, it will not be recorded.) Details: https://www.frank.computer/blog/2026/04/defense-invite.html
Post #1423794
Hey @lea... what can I read to learn more about &quot;underdetermination&quot; in creative processes? Fascinated by this while reading your DIS &quot;Investigating Underdetermination&quot; piece. Posting publicly in case others have ideas/leads too. https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3357236.3395538
Post #1423793
I had a lovely podcast conversation about some topics that are highly relevant now: what does it mean to hope, and how do we hope in ways that can make our cities better? I wrote a summary of our chat in my blog (links to full podcast are included too!): https://www.frank.computer/blog/2024/11/knowledge-prediction-hope.html
Post #1423791
I wrote this a couple of days ago and have continued adding to it. This has now turned into a manifesto against web accessibility overlays. I oppose them on functional, philosophical, and aesthetic grounds. They&#39;re spoiling personalization for accessibility. https://www.frank.computer/blog/2025/04/overlays-are-for-suckers.html
Post #1423790
Folks on bluesky loved this, while folks on linkedin did not. Perhaps mastodon will have fun with it too? I made a game out of the &quot;data-to-ink ratio,&quot; taking it to its logical (or *illogical*) extreme: https://www.frank.computer/blog/2025/04/data-to-ink.html
Post #1423789
RE: https://hci.social/@bwaber/115942428213886220 One of my favorite talks that I&#39;ve ever given! Had a fun time with this, the audience was stupendous, and it was new material that I got to try out, too. I wrote this talk to try to give folks who are early in their careers some hope, while also giving a mature perspective on tool-making to folks who might be more seasoned.
Post #1423788
Participating in the general strike and not working today? Or outside the US and just interested in accessibility and visualization? My course over at the Open Visualization Academy is out! It&#39;s a perfect way to spend a day just enriching yourself and your knowledge: https://openvisualizationacademy.org/courses/accessibility-in-data-visualization/introduction/introduction/
Post #1423787
Updated our long-list of resources on accessibility and visualization, including 2025 articles, guides, and technical tools! (For those that don&#39;t know, this single-page doc is one of my most-starred projects on github.) https://github.com/dataviza11y/resources/blob/main/README.md
Post #1423785
Another blog post! This one is getting serious traction in different circles... some are quite flustered that I would dare argue that speeding up certain types of work is ultimately anti-social. Enjoy: https://www.frank.computer/blog/2026/03/prototyping-bottleneck.html
Post #1423784
Oh!! I forgot to announce my big news over here! But I have accepted an offer as an assistant professor of data science at Cal Poly SLO, starting this Fall!! I also reflect on my decision to join a &quot;primarily undergraduate institution&quot; (aka a &quot;PUI&quot;) over on my blog: https://www.frank.computer/blog/2026/02/say-no-to-R1s.html