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Goeff McGhee, currently at Stanford University, has posted “Journalism in the Age of Data,” a documentary on information visualization in the news. It’s a must watch — both informative and inspiring — for anyone looking to apply more visualization techniques.
The researchers and practitioners selectively showcased in this film self-consciously understand that they are at the forefront of a new frontier of knowledge work. In the new “there’s data for that” world, new specialties in analytics are emerging all the time, along with a stream of new applications and design approaches. As mentioned in a previous post, I’m doing some studio research on how diverse user experience opportunities can be mapped for product team decision making and alignment. From that vantage point, two underlying information design tensions in the film ring true:
Another point that struck me while watching this film was how detached the appearance of many visualizations are from their subjects. I think the design problem of how to inject more context into abstracted data displays is genuinely interesting. For example, without reading the title or the key of a typical information visualization, one wouldn’t necessarily know whether one was looking at a representation of obesity rates or new auto sales. I’m not advocating chart junk, just wondering about more refined approaches for triggering a viewer’s understandings – beyond the current minimalist, excessively data-rich fashions. Many, but not all of the examples in the documentary have the heavy quantitative emphasis that is propelling the visualization field forward. However, I’m also curious about how the craft of information visualization can apply to mixed qualitative / quantitative data sets. A bit of the “everything can become numbers” mindset, but also more humanized somehow, without excessive distraction from primary content. Flashbulb Interaction is increasingly basing design decisions on clients’ large stores of un-mined data about user behavior and subjective satisfaction. Although I quickly browsed some of the tools mentioned in this film (e.g. Swivel, Many Eyes), I am definitely going to give them more of a test drive in the near future. What stands out to you about this documentary? What impact do you think the work of these pioneers will have on future threads of knowledge work? |
