Data Visualization

A Sketch

QUESTIONS: Martin Wattenberg

• What would be a typical research process for your projects? Where do you start and why, in regards to the following statement, "Wattenberg is a researcher at IBM, where he invents new forms of data visualization.”

• How do you determine what visuals to use for what data. In other words, is there a relationship between the data and its visuals. E.g. Are the squares in the "market" piece related to the data its representing? Maybe a market floor plan?

• How do you, if possible, address the issue of users/viewers getting lost or confused with charts or visual displays that have multi layers of "hidden" information. A picture does not always say more than 1,000 words! Graphs may use so many visual effects that they become confusing for the reader, hiding the meaning of the data.

Answers: Martin Wattenberg

• Start with an actual data. He does not accept commissions from people who don’t have a solid data.

• He conducts an extensive research into the subject line by consulting with specialists. He also makes sure he is not repeating what is has already be done. Also, He needs to know what is out there so he does not repeat their mistakes.

• He starts a series of sketches to find the best way to visually represent his data. He prefers sketching in programming as opposed to his hand.

• Taking data and representing it into a visual.

This is an exampleof data in its rawstate. The next few pages introduces Some methods of visualizing such a data for easyreading andinterpretation. Also mentioned are some influential practitioners of datavisualization.

1. Earlier statistical mapping with Common graphs such as histograms or bar charts, displaying quantity as length. Pie charts for presenting parts of a whole time series, which show the development of a variable over time. Mostly used for visualizing social statistics such as births and deaths

Tufte’s Napoleon March Map

2. The linear map of Napoleon’s march starts to introduce, to some point, conceptual ideas.

Richard Saul Wurman

3. Understanding USA maps statistics of the nations social Sectors to aid in policy making decisions. This is a much radical multilayered information architecture.

Richard Saul Wurman

Ben Fry and Martin Wattenberg[dynamic multi-layered interactive data visualize

4. This is taking a Saul Wurman and Edward Tufte’s information architectural ideas to the next level by incorporating the latest technology for data visualization.

“This birth of statistical thinking was also accompanied by a rise in visual

thinking: diagrams were used to illustrate mathematical proofs and

functions; nomograms were developed to aid calculations; various

graphic forms were invented to make the properties of empirical numbers-

their trends, tendencies, and distributions- more easily communicated, or

accessible to visual inspection. As well, the close relation of the numbers

of the state (the origin of the word “statistics”) and its geography gave

rise to the visual representation of such data on maps, now called “thematic cartography.”_http://www.math.yorku.ca/SCS/Gallery/milestone/

Pictographs: Egyptian Hieroglyphics

I am convinced that the use of pictograms and symbols to represent the spoken language for visual interpretation by such civilizations as the Egyptians, Chinese etc, is the basis or birth of data visualization. Each one of the symbols used were chosen for a reason. Placing a common reason in maps and data visuals, today, would lend more artistic value .