blog

Jeff Heer asked me to talk more about the Design, Vision, and Visualization workshop at VisWeek, so here is a list of questions we came up with. While we were not able to discuss them at great length, I think they're very valid, and might lead to a better understanding about how to connect the design and visualization worlds.

The New York Times' new Visualization Lab uses IBM's Many Eyes technology. While it provides easy access to a wealth of visualization techniques and the possibility to comment, there is one major difference: only data provided by the NY Times can be used. The kind and quality of that data will determine the success of this new site.

VisWeek 2008 was an interesting set of conferences again. The live-blog is now archived, and here are a few thoughts on blogging a conference. I had a long summary written up, but it was mostly redundant with the live-blog, so it makes more sense to go there. I will write up further things at greater length over the next few weeks.

A story is making the rounds recently that the Obama campaign has received many contributions with "odd" amounts (i.e., not whole dollars), which is supposedly proof that Obama was being funded by foreign money. Here is a quick look at the data, which shows some interesting patterns, but no evidence of foreign intervention.

I just published the first two glimpses in the live microblog from VisWeek. The microblog appears as a box on the EagerEyes frontpage, you can't miss it (unless you're reading this in your RSS reader). There are links at the bottom of the box for more postings and for the RSS feed (glimpses do not appear in the main site feed).

The New York Times has an interesting interactive visualization on the influence of presidents on the economy. They ask, Can a President Tame the Business Cycle? The visualization they use is not bad, but would be much more readable if it used a better color scale.

As promised earlier, I will be live-blogging VisWeek 2008, which will take place next week in Columbus, OH. I will mostly attend InfoVis and VAST, with the odd Vis session and workshop thrown in. The live-blog will appear in a box at the top of the frontpage, and there will be a separate RSS feed for these posts. Coverage should start Sunday (October 19) morning, and there will also be pictures.