Thougths about statistical visualization
The task force for graphical visualization(Eurostat) in Luxembourg, was a pool for some new ideas and thoughts.
Browsing through the different statistical institutions it is easy to see that there is a struggle to cope with the visualization side of things. The visual aspect of the information is (I think with no exceptions) hidden somewhere under a small obscure button. Then usually an applets starts to load, and it feels very old and slow and restricted in some way. It doesn’t feel like an integrated part of the experience.
But first -> Gapminder.
Gapminder, which I have written about earlier has gone around the world several times now and has since the first time shown on TED been aquired by google. Every time Hans Rösling and the presentation he did at TED is mentioned, it is with some sort of worship… but not with this bunch of hard core statiticians, and with good reason I was to discover.
These are the guys who actually tried to recreate what they saw Mr Rösling did, but with their own datasets. The magic sort of didn’t happen. Something was missing? Could it be that Mr. Rösling was missing? Well, it was sort of the conclusion. Gapminder work well with some passionate guy in front, but no so well on its own.
So hey, Mr. Rösling got his message across(which I think, is sort of the main issue) in an inspirational way and I have used his presentation in class with good response. But I can see the problem in trying to recreate this feeling without Mr. Rösling jumping around and waving his arms in front of the screen.
Looking forward to see what Google is gonna make of it.
As for technologies – these are on my short list at the moment
Flash of course (some inspirational examples below)
- We feel Fine by Jonathan Harris
- 3000 Faces by NY Times
Another interesting story telling -project by Jonathan Harris – The Whale Hunt.
Ajax and the comming of RIA’s – there is lots of different solutions, but I’ll focus on whats happening at the Google camp and use more time understanding their GWT framework
Edwin de Jonge from The Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek in the Netherlands showed me a very nice job done on Google Maps with their Neighbourhood aplication. The user relates enthusiastically to this way of approaching statistics. Its easy to relate to lots of data when its seen in comparison to something close.
Processing or generative art scene as such. There is a lot of exiting stuff happening out on the other side of visualization which is a a great source of inspiration.
Solutions that I have noticed recently, and gonna spend some time with:
- Piwik - open source webanalytics (open source google/analytics solution)
- Google Map Creator from CASA (see also: London Profiler)
Lecture about Google Maps API – more info here!Something new happening as well – Google Mapplets – worth checking out.
WordPress as a blogg tool is also on this list together with Swivel and ManyEyes.
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