A few weeks ago I wrote a short article for the OECD’s Better Life Index blog and it was just published yesterday.
It’s not a groundbreaking piece of work but frames a discussion about the success of the Better Life Index project that many of you will already be familiar with. It has been slightly edited but not too far from the original (not sure where the image came from but I quite like it).
I was hard at work this morning preparing for a variety of things and it just so happened that I had Jonathan Corum’s ‘Kepler’s Tally of Planets‘ work on my screen and BBC Radio 6Music playing in the background. By chance, on came the Daft Punk track ‘Get Lucky‘ and suddenly Jonathan’s planets were dancing.
The fusion between music and visualisation is something that I’ve been interested in for a while now, primarily in an atmospheric sense. In the way that audio in a movie adds to the emotion and sense of story, I’ve been wondering what impact musical accompaniements to visualisations might have, particularly interactive/animated ones.
For DRM reasons I can’t publish the iMovie re-enactment I started making but you can recreate the experience yourself by playing both these YouTube videos together.
I have started to formulate some ideas for my next generation of talks around this concept and the fusion between Hint FM’s ‘Wind Map‘ and Debussy’s ‘Claire de Lune‘ was another I felt worked (keep replaying to the Wind Map video to get full effect of the entire musical track).
Last night I had the privilege of talking at the New York Data Visualisation meetup event, hosted by the good people at McKinsey (thanks to Christian and Paul for organising). This was based on a similar talk I gave in London last week as part of the ‘IDA talks‘ series (thanks to Beth for inviting me).
The talk was titled ‘Opposites Attract: The Art and Science of Data Visualisation‘. I’ve trimmed some of the more superfluous intro slides in order to get the file size down and compatible with SlideShare. Please note this is not a slide-based document so some of the content may mot make sense without having the context and narrative provided at the event.
To mark the scoring of a record number of goals for his club, Adidas have celebrated Frank Lampard’s 203 strike with a real-life 3D visualisation of where each of these goals were scored from.
I like how they’ve combined the penalties he’s scored in to a stack.
And here’s the ‘normal’ visualisation.
It pains me to celebrate anything to do with said player or said club so let me feel better about life by congratulating Rafa Benitez on getting the best out of Lampard.
It feels like it has been a while since I mentioned my book ‘Data Visualization: A Successful Design Process‘ but now seems as good a time as any because I have some free eBooks to dish out!
I happen to have a small number of codes that can be used to download the eBook version (in full glorious technicolor) for free via the Packt website.
I’m not 100% clear just how many I have but I will find out shortly: it could be as many as 7 or as few as 3.
However, the reason why I’m publishing this now without the certainty of numbers is that the codes will expire shortly so I need to make them available in a random way to knowledge-thirsty folks like yourselves!
So, if you would like a chance to get a free copy of my (yet to be, but surely imminently) award-winning eBook then please add your name in the comments field below and I will add you to the random prize draw. Please include your email address in the appropriate box when you submit your comment so I can get in touch with you.
I will close the draw at 10am CET tomorrow (Tuesday) then randomly pull out a sufficient number of names.
To read more about the book I have a dedicated page that outlines the contents and has some sample excerpts.
** Update: Prize draw made! **
And the five random drawn winners are…
Published yesterday comes the newest episode of the PBS ‘Off Book’ series in the form of a nice video titled “The Art of Data Visualization”, a subject close to the topic of some of my recent talks. A few out there on Twitter have picked up on this already but I thought I would post it on here to reach a wider audience.
As Lisa Romagnoli – the Associate Producer – explains “Off Book is a web series from PBS that explores cutting edge art and technology and the people behind it. This episode features Edward Tufte and breaks down the ways in which we present and digest data today.”
Humans have a powerful capacity to process visual information, skills that date far back in our evolutionary lineage. And since the advent of science, we have employed intricate visual strategies to communicate data, often utilizing design principles that draw on these basic cognitive skills. In a modern world where we have far more data than we can process, the practice of data visualization has gained even more importance. From scientific visualization to pop infographics, designers are increasingly tasked with incorporating data into the media experience. Data has emerged as such a critical part of modern life that it has entered into the realm of art, where data-driven visual experiences challenge viewers to find personal meaning from a sea of information, a task that is increasingly present in every aspect of our information-infused lives.
This is a guest post by Johanna Morariu (@j_morariu) and Ann Emery (@annkemery) who work for Innovation Network, a nonprofit evaluation, research, and consulting firm in Washington, DC.
You convened stakeholders from all aspects of the evaluation: grantees, their funders, community members, even service recipients. You designed a theory of change that demonstrates how a national initiative will achieve its goals over the duration of a grant. You collected data through interviews, surveys, and other assessments. You spent dozens (hundreds?) of hours analyzing the data. You summarized key findings through a 30-page evaluation report—and even included 30 more pages of appendices with details about the analyses. After 12 months of blood, sweat, and tears, you’re finally ready to share the evaluation findings with your client.
Our strongest weapon against the Dusty Shelf Report is data visualization. These three tactics have proven most powerful:
Tactic #1: Captivate the readers with visuals. We’re also battling the Sea of Similar Reports. Our readers are not immune. Like us, they’re entrenched in a constant downpour of reports, memos, and emails. To make matters worse, the typical evaluation report is about 80% text and 20% visuals—paragraphs of text with one small chart per page. In our State of Evaluation 2012 research, we used the opposite tactic: 80% visuals and 20% text. As we suspected, the visualizations started conversations, made the information more accessible, and helped the (dry) research results stay afloat in the Sea of Similar Reports.
To grab the reader’s attention, we often deviate from the typical one-chart-per-page evaluation report format.
Tactic #2: Choose the design that’s right for the client–not the design that’s right for the data. Yep, we know. This is a major dataviz sin. We hear you. Last year, we developed a social network analysis (SNA) for a foundation. Our SNA had by-the-book design principles. But there was a major problem. It didn’t fit their dataviz literacy level. They were dataviz novices, and preferred to ‘visualize’ their data in a table. The SNA was completely unusable, thrown into the heap of Dusty Shelf Reports. Now, we’re strategically moving them forward, bit by bit, to get them to a point where they benefit from SNA. Until then, we’re using tables. Lesson learned: Have a contingency plan. What’s beautiful in theory doesn’t always apply to real-world situations.
In evaluation, we use social network maps to visualize relationships between key players in a network.
Tactic #3: Strengthen the dataviz literacy of your troops. Even though we’re visual thinkers, our clients might not be. Lead with visuals that your readers are familiar with (like bar charts). Emphasize data they’re interested in (like contextual details). With a few adjustments, you can overcome even the most lackluster bar charts. In this example, we combined a closed-ended survey question (the stacked bar chart) and a corresponding open-ended survey question (the quotes). Uniting quantitative and qualitative data provides the context they’re craving. Once they’re engaged in the conversation and comfortable with the basics, you can move on to advanced visualizations.
Throughout the evaluation field, surveys are one of the most common ways to collect data.
So, how do you combat the Dusty Shelf Report? Leave your comments below or get in touch via our twitter accounts: Johanna Morariu (@j_morariu) and Ann Emery (@annkemery). Thanks!
This is a guest post from Ben Harrow, Digital Editor at 72Point and at News by Design, a news site built around infographics – a platform that shows off infographics that tell a newsworthy story in a structured and visually dynamic way.
The term ‘infographic boom’ really grates.
As the product and its presence both continually improve, data visualisation is definitely riding a wave – and I guess that means it’s surfing its way into the mainstream media.
With the likes of The Guardian still setting the bar when it comes to quantity and quality, others news orgs like The Press Association are increasingly getting on board; delivering to the rest of the mainstream UK press and ensuring that the tabloids begin to take note.
Even PRs are seeing greater success with agency produced graphics, hoovering up name-checks and giving the business of infographics a wider appeal.
But how are they being received? Is data visualisation, in all its forms, being implemented more regularly just because it’s the next new thing? And will there be a place, long term, for graphics and visualisations in the mainstream press, both on and offline, or will the quality collapse and the interest dwindle?
Discussing data – the four kinds of ‘infographic’
I’m not even going to go into the definition of ‘infographic’ – to me, it’s a single piece of data visualisation. An information graphic. An informative graphic. The meaning has changed and will continue to change, as all meanings do.
I will however, break them down into categories because, for me, they all fall into pretty different camps:
The Beautiful - we’re talking Pitch Interactive’s Drone Strikes and visualising population with NPR – often large, complex sets of data visualised in unique, intuitive and often visually staggering or stunning ways.
The Brilliant - this is the upper echelon of what is, essentially, standard procedure – we’re talking about well researched, data-driven, reactive and consistently high quality graphics, growing out of the newsrooms of The Guardian, The Washington Post and The Economist (although they have the tendency to rely on basic graphs).
The Basic - there’s nothing wrong with basic – we’re talking about typically vertical infographics on pop culture, issues in the news or survey-based statistics, the best of which find their way into the national newspapers online (occasionally in print) and across sector-specific news websites. Well-referenced research and clean, clear design, often created by an agency or a freelance/in-house designer.
The Brave - now, there IS something wrong with this. We’re talking poorly designed, poorly referenced (or not referenced at all) or no original research. Often been done a million times before with marginally different ideas or design. The bane of my life on News by Design, and the graphic equivalent of press release spam. Basically ‘The Basic’, but done all kinds of wrong.
Now, the vast majority will fit into the middle two categories – most of ‘The Brave’ won’t go viral or even see the light of day, and ‘The Beautiful’ are few and far between and, oddly, don’t pick up major coverage (because they are often impossible to embed or are a story in themselves, not needing coverage on another platform).
So if we’re talking mainstream media, you don’t really get to see the very best and the very worst.
The UK papers, and a dash across the pond
The Guardian obviously have a monopoly, of sorts, on ‘The Brilliant’ in the UK – when you think about data and data vis, you go straight to the Datablog (but The Economist are consistent, and another good example).
This means that the vast majority of ‘Brilliant’ infographics or data visualisations are only ever produced in-house, whether by their own designers or as part of a wider project attached to the organisation – and they are only ever distributed via one platform. There’s no PR or social media effort, so to speak, simply self publication.
This means that, unlike the standard infographic, which intends to ‘live’ for a long time and remain as viral as possible for as long as possible, they have a shelf life. Which is a curious thing.
As a result, and as is the nature of the type of publication, the ‘Brilliant’ are reactive to the news agenda, feature high quality research and data journalism and are much more suited to print, where they are beginning to appear more and more often (most interestingly as a regular feature in The Metro).
It’s basically journalism vs. public relations all over again.
(When it comes to the US they are, on the whole, kicking the UK when it comes to consistently producing quality graphics – across the likes of The New York Times and The Washington Post, they have more people consistently covering important issues visually – plus, The Guardian have around a third of their readers are in the US, and the Economist is partly US too – selfish, is what that is).
Marketing, PA, PR and social media shenanigans
So marketers saw the potential of these infographics to go viral. We all know the story. Content marketing, blahblahblah.
The better of ‘The Basics’ are attached to good brands and good PR companies, who now have the potential to achieve huge coverage on some of the most popular news websites in the world – and it does make sense to try and take advantage.
Mashable is a brilliant example of an early (and continuous) adopter – develop a good news angle, a strong topline and a decent quality infographic and you’re golden. Even we’ve done it, as part of the day job. And it’s genuine, good quality coverage.
And the Press Association are making the process more mainstream, regularly sending out graphics as a picture desk would send out photos – as a resource for journalists to enhance and enlighten stories.
The quality and interest vary, but it’s an enticing prospect and something which could further wedge the door open, so to speak, to allow room for infographics to become to norm in the mainstream press.
It’s definitely a nice change from the self-producing market leaders (Guardian, Economist) having the monopoly on beautiful, visual things – but only if we’re heading in the right direction.
The Problems
For me, there are two reasons why infographics in the mainstream media are becoming pollutants – because of either the clients, or the quality.
For example, take, ironically, ‘The State of Infographics’ infographic that went viral as anything earlier this year – really good looking piece and some really good data.
But look at the ‘client’ – topmarketingschools.net. I refuse to hyperlink, but take a look. Take an actual look. I dare you.
Brands, doing infographics based subject matter relevant to their public perception, are my favourite. They show understanding, wit and intelligence, and the willingness to do something new.
But when it’s marketing spam, for a website that’s useful to no-one with content that has no relevance to your brand?
That’s when you’re polluting the pool.
The same goes with poor quality infographics – if you’re going to do it, do it right. Don’t spend >£100, or use a company you don’t know, and just do it for the sake of doing it believing that if it’s an infographic, it’ll go viral.
It won’t.
Don’t use research you’ve seen on a different infographic (or no research at all, or unreferenced research), repeating the process just because you’ll catch some marketing value by proxy (Gangnam Style. Ooofffftt).
You won’t.
I can understand that not everyone can afford an intense marketing effort, but there are young freelances who will really try for you, and survey companies that will offer you research. And there are always original ideas.
We don’t always expect ‘The Beautiful’ – and as I said, they don’t often go viral -but if people strove to rise above the average, there’d be no arguments from any corner.
In short, marketing or not, it’s about the story. Graphic and data vis. are great tools, but so are photos, news copy and video. Don’t use something simply because it’s trending, or simply for the sake of using it.
Think of a brilliant story, and use whatever medium will tell it best. It will make the best journalism, the best marketing tool, and the most viral product.
And that’s coming from someone who’s worked in data journalism, is a PR, and loves talking about infographics.
One collection of projects that most intrigued me came from the work of Kate McLean and her fascinating sensory maps: mapping the smells, sounds and tastes of a city. Here is an example of a wonderfully-titled project ‘Auld Reekie‘ showing the smell patterns of Edinburgh.
Kate is a designer, photographer and a lecturer, and describes herself as a ‘sensory researcher’ producing work that “challenges the paradigm that graphic design can rely on the visual. We have 5 senses… let’s use them“. I love the quote below, welcoming visitors to Kate’s homepage, as it perfectly captures the incredibly evocative and enduring memories we can create from our non-visual senses.
There are so many dimensions to Kate’s work. On one level she creates abstract visual representations of cityscapes using shape, contours and colours to encode the smells that characterise different parts of a city.
The cities that seem to provide the most striking experiences are those older, non-homogeneous cities with a varied tapestry of cultures and communities. She has done work on Glasgow, Edinburgh, Newport (RI), Paris and New York, and right now she is working on a smell map project for Amsterdam and has just returned from an exhibition of a 3D Smell Map of Milan.
Her process involves undertaking ‘smell walks’ of a city to capture for herself the essence of a city through its aroma. She will then record these experiences forming a ‘smell’ sketch layer of notes on top of a map of the city. From this research Kate will create a visual portrayal of the city, as we see in the image at the top, but she also goes a stage further by making up individual scents using natural ingredients that best reflect the smells identified. These aren’t part of the maps themselves but are incorporated into the wider exhibition, as she describes in an article for the Daily Mail:
Each scent is stored in its own bottle which is stored in a small cabinet underneath the map. I prefer to keep the contents of the bottles hidden so that the audience cannot rely on visual cues to identify the smells.
I have learned how to distill rose petals, to create a perfume of stinky cheese, to depict the smell of penguins at the zoo without harming a single penguin. I can fabricate the smell of a building site and of boy’s toilets in primary schools*.
In the image below we see an example of another interactive approach to creating this work, here conducted on a Paris smell map project. Here, the audience were invited to smell a scent, consider their memory or recollection of that smell and then note the feeling they identified with the smell before placing their note on the map in the location they most associated with that smell.
Kate has also worked on a ‘taste map‘ project in Edinburgh using slabs of beef dripping (that eventually melted!) to illustrate the different levels of fat content in typical diets based on (I think) the available cuisine/food outlets around the city. She has also worked on a tactile representation of Edinburgh.
You can keep a track on Kate’s fascination research and design process through her blog and follow her updates on Twitter (@katemclean). For further information, you can listen to Kate chatting about ‘Smell and the City’ (…the lesser known TV series!) on radio in Rhode Island last summer and here is a presentation she gave on ‘Representing Smell‘.
* I think I received that aftershave for Christmas a couple of years ago…
Last year I had the pleasure of taking part (in a very small way!) in the Big Dive EU, an intensive 5 week training program based in Turin, Italy aimed at boosting a new generation of data scientists and visualisation developers.
After a successful first edition, TOP-IX, together with Axant, ISI Foundation and Todo have announced there will be a second edition of this event and I’m more than happy to share details and help spread the word:
The demand for data scientists is growing exponentially and we are just at the beginning of an exciting Big Data era in the IT world. This is your chance to boost your data science skills diving into the BIG DATA universe. Big Dive EU is like a street-fighting gym where high value datasets are the raw material in the hands of a bunch of ambitious smart geeks tutored and mentored by experts in three key areas: Development, Visualization and Data Science.
Here is an outline of the disciplines that are being covered:
# DEVELOPMENT
Web application with Python
API and Data fetching
Data Storage (Relational/ key-value databases)
Hadoop and MapReduce
Performance Optimization and Profiling
# VISUALIZATION
Brief history of data visualization
Showcase of relevant data visualization projects
The manifesto of data visualization
Visual paradigms for dataviz
Step by step creation of the first dataviz project through creative coding
# DATA SCIENCE
Network science: represent and analyze network data
Statistics
Machine learning
Natural language processing and semantics
The second edition will start on June 3rd, 2013 and run through to July 5th with full-time lessons Monday through to Friday of each week. There are only 20 places available for this fantastic training opportunity. Applications close on 19th May so act quickly. Pricing information can be found here but for more details in general visit the website at www.bigdive.eu, email the organisers at info.bigdive@top-ix.org or check out the twitter feed @bigdive_eu.
