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.

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!