Sunday, 24 April 2016

My Presentation - Data Visualisation & Edward Tufte

This is our presentation about Data visualisation and the script for it



 presentation script

Overview - me
       Data visualisation is viewed as the modern equivalent of visual communication. It involves the creation and study of the visual representation of data. This means that , meaning information that has been abstracted in some schematic form
       The primary goal of data visualisation is to communicate information clearly and efficiently to users with the use of statistical and information graphics, tables, and charts selected. Effective visualisation helps users in analysing and reasoning about data and evidence. It makes complex data more accessible, understandable and usable.
       Data visualization is both an art and a science. The rate at which data is generated has increased, driven by an increasingly information-based economy.
       According to Friedman (2008) the "main goal of data visualization is to communicate information clearly and effectively through graphical means. It doesn't mean that it needs to look boring to be functional or aesthetically sophisticated. To convey ideas both aesthetic form and functionality need to go hand in hand. Designers often fail to achieve a balance between form and function, creating gorgeous data visualizations which fail to serve their main purpose — to communicate information".
       Viegas and Martin M. Wattenberg have suggested that an ideal visualisation should not only communicate clearly, but stimulate viewer engagement and attention

Brief history- simona
       data visualisation dates back to the beginning in the 2nd century with data arrangement into columns and rows and evolving to the initial quantitative representations in the 17th century. According to the Interaction Design Foundation, philosopher and mathematician René Descartes laid the ground work for William Playfair. Descartes developed a two-dimensional coordinate system for displaying values, which in the late 18th century Playfair saw potential for graphical communication of quantitative data.
       In the second half of the 20th century, Jacques Bertin used quantitative graphs to represent information "intuitively, clearly, accurately, and efficiently". John Tukey and more notably Edward Tufte pushed the bounds of data visualization. Tukey with his new statistical approach: exploratory data analysis and Tufte with his book "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information”.
       With the progression of technology came the progression of data visualisation; starting with hand drawn visualisations and evolving into more technical applications – including interactive designs leading to software visualisation. Programs like SAS and Minitab allow for data visualization in the field of statistics. Other data visualization applications, more focused and unique to individuals, programming languages such as D3, Python and JavaScript help to make the visualization of quantitative data possible.
Iso type – me
       Isotype (International System of TYpographic Picture Education) is a method of showing social, technological, biological and historical connections in pictorial form.
       It was first known as the Vienna Method of Pictorial Statistics due to it having been developed at the Social and economic museum of Vienna between 1925 and 1934.
       The term Isotype was applied to the method around 1935, after its key practitioners were forced to leave Vienna by the rise of Austrian fascism.

Examples Slide

Edward tufte - simona
       He is an American statistician and professor at Yale University. He is noted for his writings on information design and as a pioneer in the field of data visualisation.
       He is an expert in the presentation of informational graphics such as charts and diagrams
       He coined the term chartjunk which is a word used to refer to useless non-informative, or information-obscuring elements of quantitative information displays.
       Although Tufte is said to have invented Sparklines, in actuality he invented only the name and popularized it as technique. Sparklines is a small line chart which is typically drawn without axes or coordinates. It is a condensed way to present trends and variation, associated with a measurement such as average temperature or stock market activity, often embedded directly in the text. Their intention is to be succinct and memorable

criticising powerpoint - me
       Tufte has criticized the way Microsoft PowerPoint is typically used. In his essay "The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint," Tufte criticizes multiple aspects of the software including:
       Its use to guide and reassure a presenter, rather than to enlighten the audience;
       Its unhelpfully simplistic tables and charts, resulting from the low resolution of early computer displays;
       Poor typography and chart layout, from presenters who are poor designers or who use poorly designed templates and default settings  
       Instead, Tufte argues that the most effective way of presenting information in a technical setting, such as an academic seminar or a meeting of industry experts, is by distributing a brief written report that can be read by all participants in the first 5 to 10 minutes of the meeting. Tufte believes that this is the most efficient method of transferring knowledge from the presenter to the audience and then the rest of the meeting is devoted to discussion and debate.








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