Decoding Data
Data can be compelling, but it can be hard to communicate its impact. Employing a unique mix of art and science, data visualization specialist Ben Fry and GE’s Camile Kubile are bringing complex health data to life with beautiful, communicative visualizations. By balancing aesthetic form with function, they’re helping people make better sense of complex data.
We’ll never have less data. so, how do we digest it and use it to make complex issues easier to understand? A recent and much cited study out of the University of California, San Diego found that the amount of data consumed by U.S. individuals has grown by 5.4% per year since 1980. In 2008 the average American consumed over a hundred thousand words and billions of bytes of information during an average day—not including information consumed at work.
This data deluge presents a unique set of challenges for consumers, designers, and businesses alike. More data on its own does not necessarily provide clarity. Usually, more data simply confuses the conversation, whether exploring health care costs or evaluating alternative energy solutions.
How can critical questions be tackled intelligently when the information gets in the way? While faster computers and bigger hard disks have made us really good at measuring and recording things, we have not kept up with how to present the resulting information. Consumers face the twin problems of determining the credibility of data sets and accessing those data sets in forms that are easily absorbed. In other words, what should we ignore and how can we “see” relevant data more clearly?
“The main challenge is identifying the right question.”—Ben Fry, Director, Seed Visualization
These challenges are rapidly moving data visualization out of research laboratories and into the public arena. Businesses and designers are teaming up around data—mining the information and shaping it into something we can more easily process, understand and use. In this collaboration, businesses play a critical role. To contribute meaningfully, corporations have to get comfortable with data transparency. Business has the unique opportunity to share valuable and credible data sets that they already collect as part of their everyday operations. By providing the data and resources to shape that information in a more accessible way, business can help advance the public conversation on society’s toughest challenges.
Businesses can also create value for their partners and customers by actively working to simplify complexity. Practitioners of data visualization are the architects in this collaboration. They contribute their knowledge of statistics, data mining, graphic design and information visualization as they consider how best to organize and insightfully present millions of data points, often from data that’s continually changing.
By its very nature, data visualization can be exceptionally flexible with an ability to be both aesthetically driven as well as utilitarian. Great visualizations are business tools, communication platforms, and works of art. The designs are as varied as the solutions but the good ones share one thing in common: they present complex information clearly and intelligently.
To that end, effective data visualizations don’t start with data—they start with questions. What are you trying to see? The process of getting from data to understanding is rarely straightforward and frequently involves a balancing of information and insight.
Most importantly for business collaborations, great data visualizations are about the audience. The primary criteria for evaluating the success of a visualization is whether it’s appropriate for the people that you’re trying to reach. Unless what you produce is accessible to your audience it fails to communicate.
The business/designer collaboration with data is only beginning. Our understanding and application of this evolving field of visualization will increase—but good teams are committed to its basic promises: the ability to see more clearly, to communicate more effectively and to engage more thoroughly with the information we have.
GSAPP Columbia University Spring 2010 Lecture Series
Watch a Columbia University video interview with Ben Fry on itunes.Information is Beautiful
David McCandless is a London-based author, writer and designer. He’s also the independent data journalist and information designer behind Information is Beautiful.
Visit Information is Beautiful
CNN Tech: A new way of looking at the world
A CNN slide show looks at new tools that are making it easier to see and analyze complex data.
Visualizing Data
Health data can be daunting. We’ve partnered with GE’s team of health economists and leading visualization designers to communicate the intricacies of health and present you with a factual digestible picture.
Causes of Death
What are the leading causes of death in the U.S.?
The cost of getting sick
What are the real costs associated with treating chronic conditions?
Major health issues
What are some of the major health issues facing Americans today?
Your health profile
What conditions do people with my health profile most frequently experience?
The cost of chronic disease
Chronic diseases cost us billions of dollars every year in the U.S, and the costs are only expected to rise.
World Health
Comparing per capita health care costs in selected countries to the health of their citizens.
The Better Health Study
What do we know about health?
Ben Fry is the founder and proprietor of a data visualization firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Camille Kubie manages Brand and Design at GE and runs the company’s data visualization initiative. They have collaborated on several projects around healthymagination and Ecomagination.
goenka.usha
vscan is a wonderful machine but the cost is the limiting factor
Posted April 6 2010 AT 9:09 am
Atul
Very interesting and disappointing at the same time. Seems very Windows driven and doesn’t work well with Linux / Chrome etc
Posted April 9 2010 AT 11:36 pm