Vis or Not Vis

What is the key difference between a visualization and a data-based infographic? The visualization is created by a program that can be applied to many datasets, the infographic is hand-crafted for a particular dataset. It's obvious, which is why it's so hard to figure out.

The first episode of season 4 of Mad Men opens with Don Draper being interviewed by a journalist. He doesn't tell him anything that's of interest and then dodges the question Who is Don Draper? by claiming that he was taught as a child not to talk about himself. Scientists do an equally terrible job at communication, and for many of the same reasons. Cornelia Dean's book Am I Making Myself Clear? offers fascinating insights into both journalism and science, and provides concrete ideas for how to do better.

Is visualization art? Are video games art? Is programming art? Is art art? You can discuss these questions at length, but without concrete criteria, they end up being academic exercises rather than leading to some kind of conclusion. One criterion, which I believe to be suited especially well for visualization, is the sublime. Art is sublime, visualization is not. Hence, visualization is not art.

Coming from the academic and computer science side of visualization, I always assumed that it would be self-evident to anybody that visualization is first and foremost useful, and only happens to also produce nice pictures. Alas, this is not actually the case. To most people, visualization means pretty pictures first, and maybe also a fact or two. We have to fight that or risk the trivialization and marginalization of visualization as an analytic tool.

Of all the sins committed against visualization on the Internet, the Periodic Table of Visualization Methods stands out as the most egregious. Its collection of actual visualization methods, structural diagrams, and feel-good business bullshit does not fit a structure that was devised to understand the world – and that is actually a very effective visualization in itself.

Music and visualization are two things that fascinate me. I always felt that they had something in common, and I recently figured out what it was: structure. That may not be the correct musical term, but it should be clear what I mean nonetheless: the rhythmic structure of music, with its repeated patterns and variations, is what makes music. And that is also what makes abstract images interesting to look at, and what we look for in visualization. So I decided to start another website for my musings on music: EagerEars.

What is a visualization? The word is problematic, and there have been very few definitions that try to define this field we are working in. More importantly: what is not a visualization? It is easy to argue that anything visual is a visualization in some way – but does that mean anything? Here is a definition of visualization and a few examples to illustrate the different criteria.