form follows behavior

In their paper Artistic Data Visualization: Beyond Visual Analytics, Fernanda B. Viégas and Martin Wattenberg claim that artistic data visualizations “…must be based on actual data, rather than the metaphors or surface appearance of visualization.” What they seem to be saying (though I will admit I may be reading too much into this statement) is that metaphor cannot apply to any ‘artistic’ visualization directly derived from data. While the article is well written and researched, I will try to explain why I fundamentally disagree with this premise. [Note: In writing this it appears I misinterpreted their statement: see comments below.]

Read the rest of this entry >

Curtis Wong of Microsoft’s Next Media Research group describes the architecture of information in three layers of what he calls a contextual pyramid: Engagement, context, and reference. Engagement draws the recipient in, context offers an explanation of the information source, and reference gives the ability to draw conclusions and connects to related resources. Metaphors and analogies are rhetorical devices which are used most often at the level of engagement, and can apply to concepts expressed through any form or medium.

Read the rest of this entry >

In the past few months, I’ve come across a variety of work dealing, in one way or another, with compression of time as a method for visualization. Despite the wide range of work, there are particular generalizable attributes which I will identify.

The first few examples are time lapse renderings, in which the view remains fixed as all information gathered over a period of time is displayed simultaneously.

Read the rest of this entry >

Over the years, a wealth of data has become available online. With the accessibility of this raw information comes the incentive to understand its relevance or significance. Beyond making it engaging and interesting, there is, more than ever, a need for providing interpretation and perspective. Fundamentally, interpretation is a form of information control.

Read the rest of this entry >

Following the train of thought from Browsing informal hierarchies, this post investigates visualization as navigation. When can navigation double as visualization and provide the user with visual cues reflecting the organization of content on a web site or another digital media device? Already in use on many web sites, informal hierarchies have the potential to replace the widely used static, tabular navigation and its often arbitrarily determined categories with a more flexible and adaptive device, one which not only is more effective in orienting users within a particular hierarchy, but is also an iconic representation of the web site itself, providing a distinct visual identity which people will recognize.

Read the rest of this entry >