10 significant visualisation developments: July to December 2012
To mark the milestone of each mid-year and end of year I try to take a reflective glance over the previous 6 months period in the data visualisation field and compile some of the most significant developments. These are the main projects, events, new sites, trends, personalities and general observations that have struck me as being important to help further the development of this field. Earlier this year I published this collection for the first 6 months of 2012 and now I’d like to mark the end of 2012 with my latest perspective. I look forward to hearing from you with suggestions for the developments you believe have been most significant. And so, as ever, in no particular order… 1.
Should data.gov Visualize? Probably Not.
A few days ago, the Sunlight Labs blog put a post up, titled "Should data.gov Visualize? Probably Not" [sunlightlabs.com]. In terms of provoking you to read, I have copied their title for this post as well. Anyway, the post somehow caught my attention.
50 Great Examples of Data Visualization
Wrapping your brain around data online can be challenging, especially when dealing with huge volumes of information. And trying to find related content can also be difficult, depending on what data you’re looking for. But data visualizations can make all of that much easier, allowing you to see the concepts that you’re learning about in a more interesting, and often more useful manner. Below are 50 of the best data visualizations and tools for creating your own visualizations out there, covering everything from Digg activity to network connectivity to what’s currently happening on Twitter.
The Don’ts of Infographic Design
Written by Amy Balliett of Killer Infographics, the post in question is basically tips for how to create linkbait that doesn't work. Or at least I hope it doesn't. Let's take it from the top.
Citeology - Projects
Update: We have submitted a Citeology paper to alt.CHI which you can download here. Citeology looks at the relationship between research publications through their use of citations. The names of each of the 3,502 papers published at the CHI and UIST Human Computer Interaction (HCI) conferences between 1982 and 2010 are listed by year and sorted with the most cited papers in the middle. In total, 11,699 citations were made from one article to another within this collection. These citations are represented by the curved lines in the graphic, linking each paper to those that it referenced.
Business - Megan McArdle - Ending the Infographic Plague
Now that Obama's dog has won the War on Christmas, or something, it's time to get down to a war that really matters: the war on terrible, lying infographics, which have become endemic in the blogosphere, and constantly threaten to break out into epidemic or even pandemic status. The reservoir of this disease of erroneous infographics is internet marketers who don't care whether the information in their graphics is right ... just so long as you link it. As a Christmas present to, well, everyone, I'm issuing a plea to bloggers to help stop this plague in its track.
5 Best Data Visualization Projects of the Year – 2009
It was a huge year for data. There's no denying it. Data is about to explode. Applications sprung up left and right that help you understand your data - your Web traffic, your finances, and your life. There are now online marketplaces that sell data as files or via API.
Why "Infographic Thinking" Is The Future, Not A Fad
We get a lot of infographic pitches. Almost all of them suck. Why?
Datasets on Datavisualization
Wikileaks US Embassy Cables 29 Nov 2010 Datasets Infographic, Politics Wikileaks began on Sunday November 28th publishing 251,287 leaked United States embassy cables, the largest set of confidential documents ever to be released into the public domain.
Journalism in the Age of Data
In the words of Terrell Owens, get your popcorn ready, because this video (below) is awesome. During his Knight Journalism fellowship at Stanford, Geoff McGhee interviewed visualization trendsetters on how they deal and what they do with data in Journalism in the Age of Data: Journalists are coping with the rising information flood by borrowing data visualization techniques from computer scientists, researchers and artists.
Michael Deal ◊ Graphic Design
Ongoing study of Beatles through infographics, much of which is based on secondary sources such as sales statistics, biographies, recording session notes, sheet music, and raw audio readings. This graphic traces songwriting contributions by different band members (data based on authorial attributions quantified by William J. Dowlding in the book Beatlesongs
Infographics Are Broken. We Can Do Better.
Infographics on the web are so bad and so broken. They are everywhere, yet few actually do a decent job of conveying information (click on the one at left to see what I mean). Some even argue that they are ruining the Internet. They tend to be formulaic and overreaching, often cobbling together too much information instead of focusing on the one or two nuggets that are truly useful.
Research: Lev Manovich Coins the Term 'Media Visualization'
New media theorist Lev Manovich just released a new text, titled What is Visualization? [manovich.net]. One might first wonder if such a question is not too... obvious, but in the light of the contentious discussion about the tension between artistic and scientific representations of data, and whether data art should be called visualization at all, it is always worth covering the basics. The text is quite substantial, so you might want to wait for some quiet time to dive into it. The main arguments in the text focus around distinguishing information visualization, scientific visualization and information design. In addition, Lev proposes a new term, "media visualization", for those visual representations that do not reduce data into topology and geometry, but instead uses techniques to reorganize data into a new visual representation that preserves its original form.
