Interactive Design Theory: a brief discussion of information visualization

In the 1910, Weigner (a German meteorologist, known as the "theory of Continental Drift"), who was ill in bed, accidentally stared at the world map on the wall ... Hidden information beneath the surface of the map was discovered: "The contours of the Atlantic are so correspondingly ...".

Maps, the graphical tools produced by visualizing the information of ground coordinates, make it easier for people to explore the relationship and discover hidden truths. Let ' s zoom out. In fact, everything is a kind of information: tables, graphics, maps, and even text, whether static or dynamic, provide us with the means to understand the world. and visualization (visualization) will multiply their power by several times. Let's look at how TA penetrates the surface to allow hidden information to emerge:

Cholera was a serious outbreak in the Soho district of London in 1854, when the prevailing opinion on the causes of cholera was only air transmission.

John Snow (physician) compared the water quality study and the cholera mortality statistics map with the maps, and found that the source of pollution was from the communal pumps in Broad Street. Confirmed that the London government's decision to dump the waste into Thames, R. led to the outbreak of cholera through the surface of the sewage spread.

The goal of data visualization is to communicate information clearly and effectively through graphical means. Functional data visualization does not necessarily look beautiful if it is not boring to look at the extreme sophisticated data visualization. The key is to combine the characteristics of the data in order to observe.

The jailbreak hero Michael's demon tattoo avatar is used to locate a small hole in the wall:

Because Michael was involved in prison repairs, he knew the elastic coefficient of the material and some parameters. According to Hooke's law to find the coordinates, of course, to write down, the most easy to remember is the graphics, he hid the coordinates in the demon's face, and then projected onto the wall. Here, information visualization graphically remembers the results of complex computations, helping users to quickly use and achieve their goals, and multiply the use of information more efficiently.

Nowadays, data visualization has developed into a hot field of research teaching and development, and it is a comprehensive field combining science and information visualization. Today's information world: How to organize them? Information Overload: How do you understand them? All information is interrelated: how to intervene in them? Knowledge submerged in information: How to find knowledge? How do you present various forms of information to help people explore information? Let ' s take a look:

5 Years Infosthetics

http://moritz.stefaner.eu/projects/5yrs-infosthetics/

"Assuming a total of 1000 data, each screen shows 50, the total number of screen display of the end?" ”

On the occasion of the 5 anniversary of the Infosthetics forum, the designers will be in a total of about 2000 projects on the same page by multiple dimensions of the filter to find. Each small block on the left represents an item and gives several colors corresponding to the right category attribute.

Click on the right side of the category, reply number, year can be multidimensional filter. From nearly 2000 data to filter out the content of interest is also a little bit of kung Fu. By reducing the number of searches and showing a large amount of data in less space, the user's information acquisition efficiency is increased indirectly.

Where does my money go?

http://www.wheredoesmymoneygo.org/prototype/

Before Christmas in 2009, the British government announced that it would open local spending reports to the local public, so Wheredoesmymoneygo.org was born and bred. This is where users can view the expenses of the UK government in various areas over the past 6 years. The government hopes to get more detailed information, including local consumption, through the operation of the project. The categories in the chart include education, health, and national defense. Because the size of all graphics and the actual amount of the corresponding, color and the category, even if there is no percentage of data statistics, can directly see the proportion of each part of the expenditure, clear and intuitive.

-"Where is the cost of oil and energy?" ”

--"Dot green, go in and see."

California Stimulus Map

Http://www.recovery.ca.gov/HTML/RecoveryImpact/map.shtml

At present, the United States government has made public the various areas of funding. On this site, the public can see a clear view of the region's financial recovery and reinvestment distribution. Funding targets include state governments, local governments, local businesses, and local non-profit organizations.

The size of the circle in the figure corresponds to the total amount of subsidy, the number represents the number of projects funded, color sector corresponding to the traffic, energy and other major fields.

Charting the Beatles

http://www.mikemake.com/

These figurative data graphs are a study of Beatles music. The material comes from a number of graphs and documents, including sales statistics, biographies, notes, sheet music, and raw audio materials.

Each member is represented by a color, from the color block composition of each single, as well as the red stripe representing the degree of cooperation, can see the trend of the members increasingly independent.

This picture depicts Beatles's recordings, filming and touring during the 1963-1966. It's a bit like a record, a lap from inside to outside, it's very interesting.

Netflix DVD Renting

Http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/01/10/nyregion/20100110-netflix-map.html

This is the NewYork times on the netflix.com all DVD movies in various regions of the sales heat distribution map. The top slider allows you to choose a different film and view the performance by the amount of latitude you rent. Regional heat rents have become a major addition to the box office or IMDB Rating index.

Crayola ' s Crayon chronology

http://www.weathersealed.com/2010/01/15/color-me-a-dinosaur/

Crayola's is a long history of the Crayon brand, from the 1903 eight colors to the present 120-color crayon Set, the number of colors every 28 years doubled. At this rate to 2050, there will be 330 colors of crayons. It will be fine to draw a realistic rainbow in the future, but I'm afraid I'll have to make a good call to help get a crayon.

Information visualization is a broad and profound knowledge, in this only for the use of a discussion with you to explore, through the design to play a greater potential for data.

Also attach some good information visualization site for your reference:

http://well-formed-data.net/

　

http://bestiario.org/

http://flowingdata.com/

http://infosthetics.com/

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/

http://stamen.com/