Light touch, data beautiful coat

"I live on a planet of 7,080,360,000 people, and this is a story about them,
Today, the average person will say 2,250 words to 7.4 people, and people will send 300 billion emails.
19 billion text messages, combined to make up 1 huge mosaic patterns ... "-Touch the Future" (a recent American drama)

Yes, in this era of information explosion, the use of graphical means, efficient and clear exchange of information is http://www.aliyun.com/zixun/aggregation/12238.html "> Data visualization of the purpose, as a message carrier, She has multiple forms of data, can be beautiful and interesting, before the data on the graphics performance just stay in the pie, histogram and histograms and other simple visual expression form, in order to more effectively convey the data information to help users understand the resonance, attachment and the current multi-media technology means, Visual manifestations from the plane to three-dimensional, media form from paper to network and video, in terms of interactivity and timeliness are constantly changing.

Of course, the reason that the data of the coat is called beauty does not mean that it is only a gorgeous visual appearance of her performance, but more importantly can grasp the appearance and the information itself the balance between the function of the relationship. Some scholars think that this is a combination of rationality and Sensibility, "beauty" and "use" a way of design, I agree with that, if the visual design is only for the sake of beautiful and the plot of the complex content of the empty data graphics is meaningless.

The picture above is David McCandless's "How to make a good visual design" on informationisbeatiful.

I have seen a lot of relevant types of design articles, have a more common view of visual design--focusing on the visual signal-to-noise ratio, which may be a central concept shared by all visual communication designs, and deriving it into the design field of data visualization should be to include text, graphs, Graphics and other key elements of the core to be emphasized and clearly expressed in the media, weakening or removal of unnecessary symbols, lines, lists, etc., and then to the information according to different latitude (plane or stereo) division and reorganization, gradually to the data visualization.

The visualization of the data is not a very new design expression of ideas, in the prehistoric cave murals reflected in the Turkish region in 7500 before the advent of the map to the 1786 William Pleffer "The commercial and political Atlas" data-type charts, The information charts of the 1861 Kars Napoleon East Levy (Levy Russia) all showed the prototype of visual design, history has been driven by the development of this kind of design, to the modern technology with each passing day, for various types of design division and positioning is also gradually meticulous, visualization with its beautiful elegant exterior, For a specific group of people concerned about the clear positioning of the information is once again become the focus of attention of designers, we can also through more design tools for this kind of design better rendering.

Shang Dynasty Oracle Hieroglyphics

The above picture is the classic Kars Napoleon East Levy (Levy Russia) information map

Say so many visualization benefits, does she have no drawbacks?? The answer is no, the advantages of visualization in my view is that graphics language spread faster, and a wide range, the general language can not be compared, but for the relatively complex visualization of the data graph, must be targeted at specific audiences to reduce the cost of understanding, and at this point language is relatively more universal adaptability, (This is similar to our usual icon drawing, if the drawing of graphics can not well map the current function of the operation, it is better to use words to understand clearly), and data visualization is a comprehensive discipline, and is not purely visual performance can solve all problems, she involves data collection, statistics, animation, three-dimensional modeling, Cartography, imaging and so on, once the cost involved in the project is very high, in any one of the projects need to be a higher degree of professionalism to complete, can come up with a better work.

The visualization of the data is a kind of painful and happy design form, as a visual animal, I have been for its beautiful external manifestations of admiration, online also find some cases, according to different forms of expression and their own personal understanding of the induction and classification to share with you.

Dynamic Video data visualization case: Graphic Interpretation music

Interactive Data visualization case: Playing with the computer scissors stone cloth

Http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/science/rock-paper-scissors.html (interested students can go and play) This type of design emphasizes user participation, entertainment and real-time information.

Static data visualization case: dividing according to the style of visual rendering

(Polar Region Chart): The visual characteristics of the center as the basic point, outward divergence, forming a figure like flowers also known as Rose.

(Sankey Chart): The visual feature is the width of the beginning and end of the graph is equal

(Moment form diagram): As the name implies are square-shaped lattice, in the size of color on the information to distinguish

(Thermodynamic diagram): This kind of diagram is a kind of using warm and cold color to map two-dimensional variables, so as to make clustering analysis of the image, good at reflecting frequency, density, etc.

(Tree Chart): The sensory comparison of the branches of the roots, can describe the process of the event or the flow of data, etc.

(Hyperbolictree map): The United States Xerox Company's patent, can be used Java and JavaScript implementation, on the image of Alibaba China Station homepage HTML Structure Chart performance. (blue: Link a tag, red: Table, TR and TD tags, green: div tag, violet: Image img Tag, yellow: Table, input, text area, selection and option tag, Orange: line breaks and reference text BR, p and blockquote tags, black: Source code All other markup HTML tags , Gray: Root node)

(Bubble chart): Using a dotted design element to describe the data state as a change in the size of the color density

(map): The most fundamental design element is a map, often together with bubble chart in combination of appearance, describe address location, traffic and population distribution, income distribution, etc.

In this paper, the visualization of case collation and classification is only the tip of the iceberg, according to different information latitude to divide there are a lot of design forms, such as by time line, affective factors or data intrinsic relevance and so on. (Welcome to the team to shoot bricks)

Written in the end, has been very fond of a Japanese Design Master-the original research, with his passage with you design students to encourage: The designer's task is to improve the quality of information, enhance the power of communication. Advances in technology do not directly lead to improved information quality. "How is it easier to understand?" How to make it more comfortable? How to communicate more simply? These are the metrics that measure the ability of a designer to handle information. Creativity is not about making people wonder at its brand new form and material, but it should be amazing that it comes from seemingly mundane everyday life. Constantly developing these ideas is the real design.

Source: http://www.aliued.cn/