Info 202 Fall 2011

In the the 2010 Economist article Show Me, Martin Wattenberg, a graphic designer at SmartMoney, came up with a "Map of the Market", a way of visualizing closing share prices of 500 companies in the stock market by sector. Today, data visualization has been extended to fields of computer science, statistics, artistic design, and storytelling. In contrast to numerical data, words are often represented a "word clouds". Using natural language processing, political speeches both past and present are analyzed for their most frequent word usage. Social networking sites that allow "tagging" also gave nascence to "tag clouds".

The human brain processes information better via images rather than words or numbers. While numerical tables take mental and cognitive exertion, visual information can be absorbed almost instantaneously.

The brain finds it easier to process information if it is presented
as an image rather than as words or numbers. The right hemisphere
recognises shapes and colours. The left side of the brain processes
information in an analytical and sequential way and is more active when
people read text or look at a spreadsheet. Looking through a numerical
table takes a lot of mental effort, but information presented visually
can be grasped in a few seconds. The brain identifies patterns,
proportions and relationships to make instant subliminal comparisons.
Businesses care about such things. Farecast, the online price-prediction
service, hired applied psychologists to design the site’s charts and
colour schemes.

Data visualization is still being explored for its contribution and
value. In art, it has been recognized at the Whitney and the Museum of
Modern Art. In science, a representation of the sources cited in Nature codes
sources and scientific fields in different colors. This method of
organization helps readers to visualize which biology sources are
most heavily cited. In business, Ben Fry, co-creator of the visual language Processing, designed interactive chartes for General Motor's healthcare division that display costs borne by patients and insurers throughout the insured's lives. The New York Times and the Guardian have consistently produced rich data visualizations and interactive graphics to help readers better understand their print material.

Information display can indeed make a difference. Valdis Krebs, a consultant in mapping social interactions, once drew up a network map of e-mail traffic that displayed clusters that revealed teams were not talking to one another; rather through managers. This revelation effected change as the company changed its layout and work processes thereafter.