andy kirk nyc data visualization meetup
DESCRIPTION
Trimmed version of the presentation given in New York on Thursday 16th May. Also essentially the same slide deck presented at the IDA Talks event in London on Wednesday 8th May.TRANSCRIPT
Opposites Attract: The Art and Science of Data Visualisation
Andy Kirk
@visualisingdata
Visualising Data Ltd.
Opposites attract
The enduring discussion about form and function
Opposites repel?
com·mu·ni·ca·tion noun
The act or an instance of communicating; the imparting or exchange of information, ideas,
or feelings
Formal, instructive, pragmatic
Creative, natural, emotive
Analytical/Pragmatic
Abstract/Emotive
Exp
lora
tory Exp
lanatory
Analytical/Pragmatic
Abstract/Emotive
Judging tone
The trade off between accuracy and aesthetics:
Read data vs Feel data Pragmatism vs Emotion
Science vs Art
Emphasis on reading data…
Getting visualisation right is much more a science than an art,
which we can only achieve by studying human perception.
Stephen Few
http://www.interaction-design.org/encyclopedia/data_visualization_for_human_perception.html
A visualization is more effective than another visualization if
the information conveyed by one visualization is more readily
perceived than the information in the other visualization.
Jock Mackinlay
http://hci.stanford.edu/courses/cs448b/f10/lectures/CS448B-20100923-DataAndImageModels.pdf
http://www.perceptualedge.com/articles/visual_business_intelligence/the_chartjunk_debate.pdf
The Chart Junk Debate | Stephen Few
http://www.visualisingdata.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/GenderAnalysis.png
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/03/01/business/20090301_WageGap.html
Wage Gap | New York Times
Visual Cortex
Seeing
Cerebral Cortex
Thinking
Visual perception
Images from http://psychology.about.com/od/sensationandperception/ss/gestaltlaws.htm
Theoretical ancestry
Jacques Bertin, ‘Semiologie Graphique’, 1967
Cleveland & McGill, ‘Graphical Perception: Theory, experimentation and application to the development of graphical methods’”, 1984
Theoretical ancestry
B = 9
A = 10
Length
Area A = 10 B = 9
Interpretive accuracy
http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2012/12/create-optical-illusions-with-r.html
Colour perception
http://blog.visual.ly/2ds-company-3ds-a-crowd/
Visual distortions
Emphasis on feeling data…
I'm just seeing what I basically know... But I felt it in a way I never had before. You can feel a good
data visualization.
Amanda Cox
http://blogs.hbr.org/hbr/hbreditors/2013/03/power_of_visualizations_aha_moment.html
Mapping America: Every City, Every Block | New York Times
http://projects.nytimes.com/census/2010/explorer
I have this fear that we aren’t feeling enough.
Chris Jordan, TED Talk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f09lQ8Q1iKE&feature=youtu.be&t=5m11s
Running the Numbers II: Portraits of Global Mass Culture | Chris Jordan
http://www.chrisjordan.com/gallery/rtn2/#gyre2
43#
1#
Number#of#white#American#presidents# Number#of#non8white#American#presidents#
Encapsulate the feeling of a subject?
http://guns.periscopic.com/?year=2010
US Gun Murders | Periscopic
Encapsulate the feeling of a subject?
http://graphics-info.blogspot.hk/2012/09/malofiej-20-look-at-our-participation.html
Iraq’s Bloody Toll | Simon Scarr
Encapsulate the feeling of a subject?
http://www.grahaphics.com/All-The-Medalists
Storytelling One Race, Every Medalist, Ever | New York Times
http://moritz.stefaner.eu/projects/musli-ingredient-network/
“I chose the chord diagram over the possibly more revealing matrix design because the matrix doesn't look
‘tasty’ and muesli shouldn't look like ‘fungi’”
Design sensibility Muesli Ingredients Network | Moritz Stefaner
http://hint.fm/wind/
Wind Map | Hint FM
Design sensibility
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-s5PzYfPlDoc/T8kmZ1-gPPI/AAAAAAAAAYc/7kFmM94bPMU/s1600/literaryOrganism2.jpg
Literary Organism | Stefanie Posavec
Conceptual skills
http://infosthetics.com/archives/2012/03/nasa_perpetual_ocean_the_ocean_surface_currents_around_the_world.html
Perpetual Ocean | NASA
Technical flair
http://lasombra.blogs.com/la_sombra_del_asno/2013/03/kwc.html
Execution skills City of Anarchy | Adolfo Arranz
La Ballena Franca | Jaime Serra
Art direction
http://www.malofiej21.com/la-ballena-franca-grafico-mas-influente-de-los-ultimos-veinte-anos/
http://oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/united-kingdom/
OECD Better Life Index | Moritz Stefaner & Raureif
UX design
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/11/02/us/politics/paths-to-the-white-house.html
512 Paths to the White House | New York Times
UX design
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tkDK2mZlOo
Inconvenient Truth | Al Gore
Drama
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2012/nov/05/you-decide-the-presidential-election-interactive
You Decide the Presidential Elections | Guardian US
Fun
http://emoto2012.org | http://ciid.dk/education/portfolio/idp12/courses/data-visualisation/projects/tasty-tweets/
Emoto | Moritz Stefaner, Studio NAND, Drew Hemment
Experimentation
Tasty Tweets | Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design
Smells of Auld Reekie | Kate McLean
http://www.sensorymaps.com/maps_cities/edi_smell.html
Beyond just the visual…
It depends
What is good? What is bad?
What is right? What is wrong?
Who is right? Who is wrong?
Why?!
Everyone is right. Sometimes.
In certain contexts.
Who is your audience?
http://probaperception.blogspot.fr/2012/10/the-best-strategy-to-play-guess-who.html
http://youtu.be/hVimVzgtD6w?t=1m1s
Setting?
Functional needs?
http://kennedyelliott.com/visualize-this.png
Need for immediacy? Where the Public Gets its News | Kennedy Elliott
Scope for learnability?
http://infobawards.s3.amazonaws.com/SPOTLIGHT-ON-PROFITABILITY_Krisztina-Szucs.png
Spotlight on Movie Profitability | Krisztina Szucs
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/03/27/harold-bloom-genius-visualization/
Scope for learnability? History’s 100 Geniuses of Language and Literature | Accurat
Format? Technical capabilities?
The real craft behind data visualisation design is how we
rationalise choices within a context
“It depends...”
Be confident that you can justify the inclusion, exclusion and deployment of every design
property
Justified design
http://www.itsbeenreal.co.uk/index.php?/wwwords/literary-organism/
Literary Organism | Stefanie Posavec
Justified design
http://hellogiggles.com/everything-i-need-to-know-i-learned-from-jurassic-park
Justified design
Spanner in the works
There are better and worse, but rarely perfect solutions
“You can lead a horse to water…”
http://www.redbubble.com/people/rebelpony/works/1073982-you-can-lead-a-horse-to-water
Moods Tastes
Personalities Contexts Pressures
Inconsistencies
Blind-spots Confidence
Temperament Prejudices
Irrationalities Fears
People are not rational
http://visual.ly/?view=explore
http://readwrite.com/2013/02/05/brand-marketers-totally-miss-social-media-influencers
“Data visual-what-did-you-call-it?”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/naomirobbins/2013/02/04/misleading-newspaper-graph/
https://twitter.com/Mapitup/status/266420231902216192
http://skepchick.org/wp-content/uploads/venezuela.png
3 closing thoughts
We’ve still got a long way to go. Let’s enjoy the ride together.
Pragmatic 80 Creative 20
When I'm working on a problem, I never think about beauty.
I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished,
if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.
Richard Buckminster Fuller
http://www.quotes.net/quote/7377
www.visualisingdata.com [email protected]
@visualisingdata