Information Design & Data Visualization
No more LittleDataGraphics
Small data sets should be shown directly...LittleDataGraphics (pie charts, bar charts) translate and encode data into areas and colors. Viewers must then mentally translate codes back into numbers. These codes are unique to the local sets of data graphics, and do not repay learning. Instead, just directly show numbers as numbers. No more LittleDataGraphics. Data visualizations are at their best when there is so much data that the only way to see it...is to see it.
The Visual Information Seeking Mantra
There are many visual design guidelines but the basic principle might be summarized as the Visual Information Seeking Mantra:
Overview first, zoom and filter, then details-on-demand
Overview first, zoom and filter, then details-on-demand
Overview first, zoom and filter, then details-on-demand
Overview first, zoom and filter, then details-on-demand
Overview first, zoom and filter, then details-on-demand
Overview first, zoom and filter, then details-on-demand
Overview first, zoom and filter, then details-on-demand
Overview first, zoom and filter, then details-on-demand
Overview first, zoom and filter, then details-on-demand
Overview first, zoom and filter, then details-on-demandEach line represents one project in which I found myself rediscovering this principle and therefore wrote it down it as a reminder. It proved to be only a starting point in trying to characterize the multiple information visualization innovations occurring at university, government, and industry research labs.
Envisioning Information
A Book by Edward TufteBeautiful Evidence
A Book by Edward TufteThe Visual Display of Quantitative Information
A Book by Edward TufteThe Elements of Graphing Data
A Book by William S. ClevelandVision Science
A Book by Stephen E. PalmerVisual Explanations
A Book by Edward TufteVisualizing Algorithms
An Article by Mike BostockInformation Visualization: Perception for Design
A Book by Colin WareThe Eyes Have It
A Research Paper by Ben ShneidermanVisualizing Data
A Book by William S. ClevelandExploratory Data Analysis
A Book by John TukeyPlus Equals #4
An Article by Rob WeychertOne of the seeds for Plus Equals was planted a few years ago with Incomplete Open Cubes Revisited, my extension of a Sol LeWitt work. I learned a lot about isometric projection from that project, but my affection for the concept didn’t begin there. Whether I’m looking at a Chris Ware illustration or an exploded-view technical drawing of a complex machine, an isometric rendering always stirs something in me.
In search of visual texture
An Article by Rachel PruddenI’m now more inclined to attribute Looseleaf’s power to its visual texture than to some cognitive media-style abstraction. And the visual texture owes more to the beauty (yes, beauty!) of the original pdfs from the Vasulka Archive. Perhaps the demo is best understood not as a prototype generic tool, but as a specific curated experience in its own right, with form and content claiming equal importance in its overall success.
Even so, I think there are some general lessons that can be drawn from this demo:
- Content is not inert
- Visual texture lets content breathe
- Visual texture lets the eye wander without losing itself
Chartwell
A FontThis set of tools for easily creating graphs is conveniently disguised as a set of fonts. OpenType features are used to interpret and visualize the data. The data remains as editable text, allowing for painless updates.
Windy
A WebsiteBetter colormaps?
An Article by Mark LibermanA modest sample of alternative ways of coloring the same type of 2-D density plots of rates of F0 change and amplitude change.
ImageQuilts
A Tool by Edward Tuftepress.stripe.com
A WebsiteStripe partners with millions of the world’s most innovative businesses. These businesses are the result of many different inputs. Perhaps the most important ingredient is “ideas.”
Stripe Press highlights ideas that we think can be broadly useful. Some books contain entirely new material, some are collections of existing work reimagined, and others are republications of previous works that have remained relevant over time or have renewed relevance today.
Between the Words
An Artwork by Nicholas RougeuxMoby Dick.
Between the Words is an exploration of visual rhythm of punctuation in well-known literary works. All letters, numbers, spaces, and line breaks were removed from entire texts of classic stories...leaving only the punctuation in one continuous line of symbols in the order they appear in texts. The remaining punctuation was arranged in a spiral starting at the top center with markings for each chapter and classic illustrations at the center.
SeriesHeat
A Website by Jim VallandinghamSearch for a TV Series to see a heatmap of average IMDb ratings for each episode.
Time-based analytics
An Article by Ryan SingerAnalytics apps don't tell you much about usage behavior. You might be able to see how many users performed an event, or how many times they did it. But none of the analytics packages out there are good at showing you how often people do things. Are they using to-dos once a week? Every day? Only signing into the app once a month but happily paying for years?
Time matters. You can't understand usage without time.
Cameras and lenses
An Article by Bartosz CiechanowskiPictures have always been a meaningful part of the human experience. From the first cave drawings, to sketches and paintings, to modern photography, we’ve mastered the art of recording what we see.
Cameras and the lenses inside them may seem a little mystifying. In this blog post I’d like to explain not only how they work, but also how adjusting a few tunable parameters can produce fairly different results.
The Subtleties of Color
A Series by Robert SimmonThe use of color to display data is a solved problem, right? Just pick a palette from a drop-down menu (probably either a grayscale ramp or a rainbow), set start and end points, press “apply,” and you’re done. Although we all know it’s not that simple, that’s often how colors are chosen in the real world. As a result, many visualizations fail to represent the underlying data as well as they could.
tixy.land
A Websitesin(t * x) * cos(t * y)
Creative code golfing.
Zipdecode
A Website by Ben FryA Library Demand List
A Website by Robin SloanThis visualization takes the current New York Times Best Sellers list for combined print and e-book fiction and scales each title according to the demand for its e-book edition at a collection of U.S. public libraries, selected for their size and geographic diversity.
MIT Student Hub
An Article by Alex HogrefeThe project is located on the MIT Campus and will be a “Student Hub” containing restaurants, large event spaces, and smaller study spaces.
V-RESAS
An ApplicationAll in & with the flow
An Article by Buster BensonInfoCrystal
A Research PaperThis paper introduces a novel representation, called the InfoCrystal, that can be used as a visualization tool as well as a visual query language to help users search for information. The InfoCrystal visualizes all the possible relationships among N concepts.
Readings in Information Visualization: Using Vision to Think
A Book by Ben Shneiderman
The Shape of Design
Near and far
The creative process, in essence, is an individual in dialogue with themselves and the work. The painter, when at a distance from the easel, can assess and analyze the whole of the work from this vantage. He scrutinizes and listens, chooses the next stroke to make, then approaches the canvas to do it. Then, he steps back again to see what he’s done in relation to the whole. It is a dance of switching contexts, a pitter-patter pacing across the studio floor that produces a tight feedback loop between mark-making and mark-assessing. The artist, when near, is concerned with production; when far, he enters a mode of criticism where he judges the degree of benefit (or detriment) the previous choice has had on the full arrangement.
Painting’s near and far states are akin to How and Why: the artist, when close to the canvas, is asking How questions related to craft; when he steps back, he raises Why questions concerned with the whole of the work and its purpose. Near and Far may be rephrased as Craft and Analysis, which describe the kinds of questions the artist asks while in each mode. This relationship can be restated in many different ways, each addressing a necessary balance:
- How and Why
- Near and Far
- Making and Thinking
- Execution and Strategy
- Craft and Analysis
Why we should read
Unfortunately, the program met its end because the show’s approach opposed the contemporary standard format of children’s television: teaching kids how to read, rather than Reading Rainbow’s objective, which was to teach kids about why they should read.
Reading Rainbow had a long run, lasting twenty-three years, but its cancellation feels like a symbolic blow. Education, just like climbing the ladder, must be balanced between How and Why. We so quickly forget that people, especially children, will not willingly do what we teach them unless they are shown the joys of doing so. The things we don’t do out of necessity or responsibility we do for pleasure or love; if we wish children to read, they must know why.
We hear a voice whisper
The Shakers have a proverb that says, “Do not make something unless it is both necessary and useful; but if it is both, do not hesitate to make it beautiful.” We all believe that design’s primary job is to be useful. Our minds say that so long as the design works well, the work’s appearance does not necessarily matter. And yet, our hearts say otherwise. No matter how rational our thinking, we hear a voice whisper that beauty has an important role to play.
Needs more love
He held the phone to his chest, looked at me, and simply said, “Needs more love.” He pushed the portfolio back across his desk, smiled warmly, and shooed me out of his office.
I still think about this advice, and what exactly he might have meant when he said my work needed more love. At the time, I took it to mean that I should improve my craft, but I’ve come to realize that he was speaking of something more fundamental and vital. My work was flat, because it was missing the spark that comes from creating something you believe in for someone you care about. This is the source of the highest craft, because an affection for the audience produces the care necessary to make the work well.
One candle can light another
Lighting one candle
with another candle—
spring evening.Buson is saying that we accept the light contained in the work of others without darkening their efforts. One candle can light another, and the light may spread without its source being diminished.
A great leap of lightness
The first step of any process should be to define the objectives of the work with Why-based questions. The second step, however, should be to put those objectives in a drawer. Objectives guide the process toward an effective end, but they don’t do much to help one get going. In fact, the weight of the objectives can crush the seeds of thought necessary to begin down an adventurous path.
The creative process, like a good story, needs to start with a great leap of lightness, and that is only attainable through a suspension of disbelief. The objectives shouldn’t be ignored forever, but they should be defined ahead of time, set aside, and then deployed at the appropriate moment so that we may be audacious with our ideas.
Going evil
To begin, we must build momentum and then reintroduce the objectives to steer the motion. I find the best way to gain momentum is to think of the worst possible way to tackle the project. Quality may be elusive, but stupidity is always easily accessible; absurdity is fine, maybe even desired. If the project is a business card for an optician, perhaps you imagine it is illegible. (This is in the spirit, but you can do better.) If it is a brochure for an insurance agency, imagine otters on the cover and deranged handwriting on the inside for the copy. (Further!) If it is design for an exhibition of Ming Dynasty vases, brand it as an interactive show for kids, and put the vases on precariously balanced pedestals made of a shiny metal that asks to be touched. (Yes!)
The important realization to have from this fun—though fruitless–exercise is that every idea you have after these will be better. Your ideas must improve, because there is no conceivable way that you could come up with anything worse.
The momentum of making
Limitations narrow a big process into a smaller, more understandable space to explore. It’s the difference between swimming in a pool and being dropped off in the middle of the ocean with no land in sight. Those limitations also become the basis for the crucial first steps in improvisation. After those, the momentum of making accelerates as ideas are quickly generated without judgment.
Let the body wander
If the mind needs to wander, best let the body do the same. A short walk is more effective in coming up with an idea than pouring all the coffee in the world down your gullet.
Message, tone, format
All design work seems to have three common traits: there is a message to the work, the tone of that message, and the format that the work takes. Successful design has all three elements working in co-dependence to achieve a whole greater than the sum of the individual parts.
Asking why
Most inventions are recombinations of existing things, but where do the sparks for those combinations come from? What instigates that magic to make hybrids, to use them for unimagined purposes, and to inspire new settings for the three levers? Certain advancements seem logical and inevitable—smaller cellphones, faster computers, more reliable medical technology—while others seem to come out of nowhere. Turning avocado into caviar, for example, is not a logical conclusion in the kitchen. That choice is an inspired one. You can always spot these brilliant inventions as instances of magic, because our reaction, much like Achatz’s first meal at elBulli, is always disbelief.
Henry Ford famously said that if he had asked his customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse. Of course, we know that the faster horse is a testament to the limited imagination of customers, but I’d suggest that it’s more representational of not reassessing the objectives of the work in light of new opportunities. The faster horse is a recombination of the three levers in a predictable way: the customer’s answer is staunchly loyal to the horse, the already established format of transportation. They are inside of the adjacent possible, and ask a How question: How can horses be better?
Asking a Why question leads us to a different conclusion: Why are horses important? Because they quickly and reliably get us from one place to another. A Why question defines our need and uses an objective to create a satisfactory outcome for the work. This type of question is specific enough to be observable, but flexible enough to be approached in a variety of different ways. It’s easy to think that the way to improve life is to iterate on the things that we already have, but that is a trap of limited imagination. We should be iterating on how we answer our needs, and not necessarily on the way our old solutions have taken shape. The root of our practice is located in the usefulness of the work, not the form that it takes.
Outcomes and consequences
The primary purpose of the design is to have it do something particular, not be any particular thing. All of this implies that design is a field of outcomes and consequences more than one of artifacts. The forms that designers produce are flexible, so long as the results serve the need.
The source of delight
Design doesn’t need to be delightful for it to work, but that’s like saying food doesn’t need to be tasty to keep us alive. The pedigree of great design isn’t solely based on aesthetics or utility, but also the sensation it creates when it is seen or used. It’s a bit like food: plating a dish adds beauty to the experience, but the testament to the quality of the cooking is in its taste. It’s the same for design, in that the source of a delightful experience comes from the design’s use.
Every exit is an entrance somewhere
At the Ace Hotel in New York, a required exit sign over a door was an eyesore, and a stark contrast from the considered, detailed wall where it was mounted. Rather than accept the wart as it was, the sign was embraced as a chance to create an experience for the hotel’s guests by integrating the exit sign into the space. Now, surrounding the sign are other letters painted on the wall in a similar condensed style.
Every requirement is an opportunity for delight, even the ugly ones. Sometimes the creative treatment of these warts are the most enjoyable parts of a design.