Processing & Javascript

7th
Feb. × ’10
By andrea

So, want to communicate between your Processing applet and the webpage via javascript? Yep, thought so. So did I!

Processing & Javascript

Processing & Javascript

I wanted to create a BabyName Voyager-type functionality, where changes to the view in the visualisation would change the URL and vice versa.

There are definitely improvements to be made, but this is the first pass at Processing & Javascript.

Eg: you can load the applet with 100 circles and a white background instead by adding the attribute to the hash.

We’ve been working on a datavis project lately, and needed this code for it — so watch this space: I’ll be blogging about The Data Visualisation Process very soon.

Posted in processing, programming, project | Leave a comment

NOIR, FILM: Information Aesthetic Meta-Representational Considerations

31st
Jan. × ’10
By andrea

Okay, so I know it’s naff, but for five years, the only way I’ve ever remembered Stevens’ On The Theory of Scale and Measurement is by the mnemonic NOIR:

  • Nominal (named/categorised): apples, oranges, pears
  • Ordinal (ordered): small, medium, large
  • Interval (measured): the interval between 2:30pm and 3:00pm is the same as the interval between 10:30am and 11:00am
  • Ratio (measured, has zero value): 0 tonnes of apples, 40 tonnes of apples.

What makes the NOIR concept important is that it can define every data type.

Then, you have Mackinlay’s Automating the Design of Graphical Presentations of Relational Information, which defines representational types, and can also be described by NOIR.

Mackinlay Ranking of Perceptual Tasks

Read More »

Posted in information aesthetics, thoughts | Leave a comment

Datavis: Making Way for Representative over Abstract Representations

8th
Dec. × ’09
By andrea

We watched Home the other weekend (available on YouTube); a sort of Inconvenient-Truth-meets-BBC-documentary film about the story of the Earth. The scariest chapter of course being humans’ appearance and the destruction of the environment.

The issues of global warming aside, it was interesting to note the different approach that this film took to Inconvenient, especially how numbers were communicated.

Although we almost-unanimously praise the combination of infographics, photography, and commentary by Al Gore, I find Home equally, if not more, compelling to watch – yes, even without infographics!!

Why? Because:

  • there’s a narrative; not just any narrative, but one which every person watching the film is a part of.
  • seeing the actual impact of humans rather than a removed/abstract/conceptual line graph or chart is far more relatable
  • being guided, having a stream of video plus voice-over lends more to the imagination. There’s something inherently different about watching a presentation versus a film.

There’s a very good paper out there by Dalbello & Spoerri (2005) Statistical representations from popular texts for the ordinary citizen, 1889–1914 which argues that representational visuals can aid communication to audiences through their strong relationship with everyday life.

I wonder all of this after realising that people need shitloads of explanation when you show them a datavis project or an infographic.

If everyone in the field argues that visual metaphor, abstract form that follows our perception, Gestalt theory, and understanding of user models of interaction can produce visualisations that are easy to use, familiar… then why is it so hard?!

People have to be ‘trained’ to use computer systems, but they shouldn’t have to for information aesthetic datavis. Instead, datavis must take qualities of well-designed products (a la words from Don Norman) and perhaps even the intuitiveness of art.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6W5R-4JB9MVG-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1126434131&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=cdccb77069ee9e59e016d747d8cdce93
Posted in art, data visualisation, design, thoughts | Leave a comment

Postdecode – Australian Zipdecode

5th
Nov. × ’09
By andrea

I was going to do something for MashUp Australia and then got sidetracked, and decided to apply Ben Fry’s zipdecode to Australian postcodes. (After seeing that it’s been done for Germany and Switzerland).

The data isn’t quite complete (there are about 300 missing suburbs that didn’t have matching postcodes in the data file I got from thsutton@geonames…like, postcode 3000 is missing!), but otherwise, it’s interesting!

Unlike Fry’s version, I’ve almost implemented search by suburb name, so you can search by postcode or name. Dur.

It’s buggy, I haven’t ‘designed’ anything, still have to fix a lot of stuff up, and it’s all nergh, but here it is anyway:

the Australian Postdecode.

At least I promise to keep track of the progress and process with this!

Some insights:

  • The most popular starting-character is ‘B’ (1665 suburbs)
  • There is a suburb starting with ‘X’ (Xantippe, 6609)

Australian Postdecode

Posted in data visualisation, information aesthetics, project | 3 Comments

Honours Thesis

5th
Nov. × ’09
By andrea

Had a request for my honours thesis from @itsgoodtoseeyou so here it is.

Honours Thesis – Information Aesthetics – A Model and Evaluation of Information Aesthetics in Information Visualisation

I don’t know why it doesn’t render properly in Preview; it just doesn’t…

And, yes, I’ve done this in lieu of blogging anything the last two weeks. Blergh.

Posted in data visualisation, information aesthetics, personal | 3 Comments

Information Aesthetics: Closer to Art or Design?

14th
Oct. × ’09
By andrea

Was pondering the other day after seeing ‘The Difference Between Art and Design‘, which listed five points:

  1. Good Art Inspires. Good Design Motivates.
  2. Good Art Is Interpreted. Good Design Is Understood.
  3. Good Art Is a Taste. Good Design Is an Opinion.
  4. Good Art Is a Talent. Good Design Is a Skill.
  5. Good Art Sends a Different Message to Everyone. Good Design Sends the Same Message to Everyone.

I wonder: where would you insert information aesthetics? Would it replace art or design? (First disregarding the whole issue of what a ‘good information aesthetic visualisation’ is to begin with!)

  1. Motivates: the point about effectively communicating a message is key here.
  2. Interpreted or Understood? Information aesthetic visualisations should be firstly understood (through familiarity, intuitive interaction, etc) with an overall meaning, but be open to interpretation through interaction. This one is contentious because in many ways design can be interpreted, too. Heck, anything can!
  3. Opinion: this one is dicey, too, but largely, it’s about opinion. I would say that subjective taste does play a part when you get into the less-familiar modes of representation, and people would still have taste-based judgements about colour choice and style.
  4. Talent & Skill: definitely! You need to have an emotional connection to the data – an intrinsic ability to bring out meaning and insights – and what the visualisation is trying to communicate, but you need the know-how to effectively do this.
  5. Different & Same: this is the same as point 2.

The most salient message here is that, if information aesthetics can replace ‘design’ in most of these instances, then it in fact becomes a part of the design and HCI fields. Ie: not the computer science or software engineering field which information visualisation comes from, and where a lot of people argue that it shouldn’t be anyway!

Posted in art, design, information aesthetics, thoughts | 2 Comments

Thoughts on Kyoto: Who’s On Target from Information is Beautiful

9th
Oct. × ’09
By andrea

If you haven’t seen it already, Information is Beautiful posted a wonderful inforgraphic the other day on the Kyoto Protocal Targets. (I’ll just reproduce a fragment here).

I KNOW! I did diss Information is Beautiful previously, but I like this one. (Which is odd, because there are comments about readability).

It shows how the design decision to make data close to its MEANING rather than its structure works! I mean, really, we don’t want to see that Poland is 2.4% closer to target than the Slovak Republic; all we want is a general overview: which countries are doing well, and which ones suck like…well, are doing badly.

Kyoto Protocol Inforgraphic from Information is Beautiful

So what makes this good?

Read More »

Posted in critique, data visualisation, infographics, information aesthetics | 5 Comments

The Epitome of Information Aesthetics (according to A. Lau)

29th
Sep. × ’09
By andrea

What are the ‘best’ or most representative examples of information aesthetics visualisation?

It of course depends on your definition! So, first thing’s first: here was mine/our definition*:

Between the information visualisation research and visualisation art communities lies the emerging phenomenon of information aesthetics. Information aesthetics is proposed as a field which adopts visualisation techniques exhibiting both informational value and artistic meaning.

This definition was not plucked out of no where – it came together from knowing projects in the field and organising them in such a way to give us a ‘perfect’ example. (And knowing the field itself – see below for our existing models).

I wish this was more fully formed, but since this is blogging, I’m just gonna put it out there. =)

Read More »

Posted in critique, data visualisation, information aesthetics | Leave a comment

Why The Outliers Is Here #5: Let’s define the norms.

22nd
Sep. × ’09
By andrea

Is Wattenberg’s Baby Name Voyager really that good? (Yes. Find out why in a future post).

Should we really listen to everyone in information visualisation? (Er, no. I guess that’s another post!)

What’s more, the accepted norms in information aesthetics really hasn’t been defined. Information visualisation has been around for yolks. The two fields are not the same. Sure, there’s overlap, but they don’t follow the same rules.  Let’s find the goal posts for information aesthetics, who we should listen to, (who we shouldn’t), and what we should be aspiring to be doing.

* I had actually titled this post ‘Let’s challenge the accepted norms’…but then I realised that there are not ‘accepted’ ‘norms’ in information aesthetics. dur!
* I promise this is my last meta-post.

Posted in data visualisation, information aesthetics | Leave a comment

Why The Outliers Is Here #4: Less is more. Let’s reduce the information load, not increase it.

21st
Sep. × ’09
By andrea

It’s a little counter-intuitive, I know (with all of us creating craploads of digital/physical/neurological… data a day), but bear with me.

It’s about moving up the data-to-wisdom hierarchy, not across it.

data_to_wisdom

Let’s say that each visualisation project is a data point. Currently, some visualisation blogs out there reproduce data, ie: infosthetics and visual complexity, which is fine, because they provide a great one-stop-shop for (almost!) every datavis project ever done. (There is, however, information found in the categorisation of these projects).

On the other hand, you have Flowing Data, which moves up the hierarchy a little by presenting lists, grouping relevant visualisations, and introducing extra information not present in the data.

I’ll try my best to bring information, insights and knowledge rather than data.

*an illustration of data to wisdom.

Posted in blogs, data visualisation | 3 Comments