We began our lecture by discussing how data surrounds us in everyday life. When we think of data, people including. myself tend to think of ‘boring’, repetitive numbers and statistics. Design brings a beauty into data, presenting it in a way that is visually appealing, engaging and easy to interpret.
“The commonality between science and art is in trying to see profoundly – to develop strategies of seeing and showing.”
Data is often in the form of diagrams, including charts, graphs and more. This tends to be the more mathematical and scientific way of visualising data, as it’s presebntrted accurately with clear labels and values.
Visualisations are creative ways of showing data, without the strict format and systems that is followed in traditional diagrams. Data visualisations are a unique combination of data and design, as there’s much more freedom on how to present and show data. We looked at Felton’s report of what he ate as an example of a diagram; at a glance, it simply looks like text on a screen of different meat. However, it presents a large amount of data which Felton collected, condensed down into a simple and visually appealing design. This is what makes it such a good example of visualisation.
Data and data visualisations surround us in everyday life, even if we don’t always recognise that they are visualisations. Some examples of these include;
Data can be used for deception; designers can choose to show or hide data when creating visualisations. Even if data isn't explicitly incorrect, the way that it’s shows can impact how people present it. One example of this is Apple’s 2008 3D pie chart, which many people notices used perspective to manipulate how it’s perceived. Sure enough, the 19.5% for Apple is notably larger than the 21.2% for Other, despite having a lower percentage. The perspective of the chart skews peoples perception and creates a sense that apple are better performing than they truly are.
Furthermore, certain values can be selectively left out of visuaisatiuions to change how it’s perceived. For example, a chart with a maximum value od £30k showing an upwards trend starting from the bottom is very impressive, as we assume that the base value is £0. However, if this is left blank, the base value could be £29k, creating a much less impressive trend.