Visual Communication

There is almost universal agreement that any extraneous elements in a chart or visualization, elements that do not represent numbers, are detrimental to understanding the data. A paper that was presented at CHI recently described a study to figure out just how bad all this chart junk really was. As it turns out, it's actually rather helpful.

Most data visualization on the web consists of static images. Typical interactive visualizations use Flash or Java, both of which have drawbacks and require plugins, don't work on mobile devices, etc. A number of recent visualization tools based on JavaScript promise to finally bring visualization to life on the web. The ways they work differ, but they all profit from recent advances in JavaScript performance across all modern browsers.

It has never been easier to record your daily activities. The data is all well and good, but the real value comes from visualizing it. Why visualize your mundane, boring life? Because it helps you track what you are doing, and provides motivation to get your ass to the gym.

General Electric recently commissioned Ben Fry and Seed Media to visualize health data to communicate the costs of different kinds of diseases to the public. The result is pretty and colorful, but of little value if you actually want to learn something.

Last week, I attended the seminar on Turning Statistics into Knowledge, organized by the OECD, the World Bank, and the US Census Bureau. That was an interesting way of spending two days, and I saw some interesting ideas and talked to many great people. But it was also a reminder of how little understanding of visualization there really is, and how far we have to go to make good visualizations available and work for a variety of users.

The recent opening of Data.gov has led to a number of discussions on data formats, feeds, what kinds of data, which agencies are or are not participating, etc. One key aspect that gets overlooked very easily, but that is really essential, is that what is being published is actual data: original, raw, unprocessed, undigested, naked data. Everything else is secondary.

Florence Nightingale invented modern nursing, and established its importance based on data she collected during the Crimean War in the 19th century. She was not only the first one to realize the role of hygiene and care for wounded soldiers to prevent the spread of disease and death, she also was the first to understand that sound decisions can only be made on data. Not only did she collect that data, she also devised ways to communicate it to decision makers who lacked knowledge of statistics or math.