David McCandless ‘The Beauty of Data Visualisation’

We began our lecture by watching a TedTalk from David McCandless which was. published in 2010, called ‘The Beauty of Data Visualisation’.

The beauty of data visualization - David McCandless

I found this TedTalk to be very interesting and informative about data visualisation, which I can see myself using to help me in my future projects. Some of the points I found most interesting from the TedTalk and are noted below;

• McCandless showed a data visualisation on global media panic called ‘Mountain out of Molehills’. The information is presented as a graph, with each major panic having its own colour and shown at different heights throughout the year. He points out that there are a range of patterns that would be much more difficult to identify without data visualisation. For example, the violent video games peak in the same months every year and this wouldn't be clear if it wasn't visualised. This is very relevant to my current project, as I’m making a range of charts and tables to include in my dashboard. Indeed, I’ve found that I can recognise the patterns on different environmental statistics when I visualise them in comparison to looking at the raw facts and figures.
• ‘Data is new soil’. Over the years, we have laid down so much information and figured, but when we work and play with it in a certain way new patterns emerge, which he compares to a flower. blooming in the soil. He showed a chart reflecting peak break up times throughout the year taken from 10000 Facebook statuses, and noted how it interesting and humorous info on peoples nature such as ‘too cruel’ on holidays as lowest day is Christmas, while it peaks for two weeks beforehand.
• McCandless describes how nowadays we all demand visual information. This is because it is effortless to take in; A beautiful graphic among ordinary information is like finding a clearing in a jungle as our sense of sight is the quickest to interpret new information. I found this point particularly interesting, as it brings some science and psychology into data visualisation and describes why we tend to be drawn to this form of data over raw facts and figures.
• Herbal supplements visualisation: McCandles further showed a visualisation on herbal supplements which shows the relationship between popularity and evidence. It points to how data visualisation is data condensation, a large amount of data can be squeezed into a small visualisation that the mind can interpret much easier and quicker. This is something that I’ve noticed ib my personal research and plan to take into account for my future projects. Visualisations are a way of condensing a large amount of information into one screen, making it easier to perceive and break down to the average eye.
• Data visulisation can be applies to ideas and concepts. McCandless talked about how when creating a design of political perspectives and their ideas. When creating this, he had to equally write about two main perspectives; one of which his views aligned with, and the other which his views did not align with. Regardless, he had to lay out both of these to create an equal, unbiased visualisation, and ended up gaining a better understanding of why some people choose certain views. Therefore, equally created, unbiased visualisations which reflect a range of datapoints allow for understanding a range of perspectives rather than tunnel vision of their own.
• McCandless finished his talk by describing how out media is so saturated and untrustworthy. Visualising info is a quick solution to this. Even when the basic information is terrible, a good visualisation can make it interesting and reach a wider audience.

Dashboard Review Workshop

We were split into groups of two to do a dashboard review workshop. This i9nvolved showing another person our design and them answering a questionnaire form on our design, and vice versa. I was paired with somebody I hadn’t spoken to before as was initially a little nervous, but we quickly broke the ice and began looking at each others designs, filling in the worksheet we were provided with. My diagrammatic design wasn’t finished at this stage but it was quite a hi-fi version of what I’d like my deliverable to look like, so I feel that I was at the perfect t stage for receiving feedback from a peer.

Workshop Findings

The feedback that I received will be very valuable with me continuing my project:

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Step 1 - Quick Overview

The firsts step was answering the ‘Quick Overview’ section of the worksheet, consisting of two questions on how the other person percieved our dashboard. The person I worked with felt that there purpose of the dashboard was to have an overview of Northern Ireland’s environmental system, with a target audience of enviornmentalists or the environment agency. All of this was accurate, so I’m very happy that it came across. One thing I’ll note is that I did have a wider target audience of anyone with an interest in climate change or the environment, so perhaps my design was too formal / not refined enough to meet the needs of an ordinary user.

Step 2 - Structured Review

Clarity and Purpose ****It was noted that my design is clear within the first five seconds, which I’m pleased with as I feel that this should always be at the centre of visual data such as a dashboard, as the purpose is to simplify data so that it’s easy to interpret. The individual that I was working with wrote ‘To provide a clear view of what the environment in Northern Ireland is like’ as what he pervieevd the purpose of my dashboard as. Again, I was very happy about this as that’s exactly what my intended purpose is!