The Dawn of the Interactive Datagraphic and the Datalarity!
A new kind of data visualization is on the horizon and it’s beginning to eclipse the modern infographic in a good way.
Before we talk about the future let’s travel back in time….to the beginning…
The modern American infographic most likely originated sometime in 1872 when Francis Amasa Walker attempted to map the American population through the census.
With the population infographic people could now easily see how population was spread across the America in a very easy to understand and compelling way.
Fast forward to the 21st century and you see infographics everywhere!
The Modern Infographic
From fascinating historical studies like The Sleep Schedules Of 27 Of History’s Greatest Minds
to the hilarious What To Do When The Internet Is Down
Infographics help us understand the world in a way that in many cases we could not even fathom without them. For example, have you ever tried to visualize 1 Billion Dollars? Pretty impossible right? With the following infographic you can, and it’s awesome (and pretty insane at the same time). Those are stacks of $100 bills!
Infographics usually create graphics that are associated with a particular data point or value and are normally not interactive. Their general purpose is to present complex or very big data in a very simple way. The data in an infographic is normally fixed, it’s static. With an infographic, you can not change the data so it is a tool to present data in a basic way without giving much context.
Here is a cool interactive infographic but as you will notice the data is static and collected from sources and distilled to create this cool demonstration.
In contrast the interactive datagraphic takes real-world and in some cases streaming data and presents it graphically in a way that you can interact with. Change the data and the interactive datagraphic changes as well. An interactive datagraphic is dynamic so apart from just presenting data in a way you can visualize you can actually change the data and learn by modeling the context.
Here is a must watch amazing TED talk by David McCandless on the beauty of data visualization and the power behind it. I believe he is just hitting on the tip of the iceberg of how data will change our futures in a real way!
The Dawn of Interactive Datagraphics and the Datalarity
In a future where data can provide clarity and dissolve hype, the interactive datagraphic will rule. Where infographics are great they also fall short when it comes to a true reflection of actual data. Normally an infographic is distilled data that has a particular objective in conveying a thought or idea to instiall the same thought or idea in the viewer of the infographic, they are in essence reflecting static data.
Where datagraphics differ dramatically is that they are closer to a true reflection of reality. They have no bias other than the data itself. There is of course the possibility of corrupt or incorrectly captured or classified data but this is why data science and machine learning are growing at such an amazing pace, to help achieve datalarity ☺ Like the singularity there will come a point where enough data is captured through IoT (internet of things) and sensors that we will be close to predicting future results of present actions.
So what does an interactive datagraphic look like? As mentioned earlier, David McCandless has created some awesome interactive datagraphics. For example here is one from his Ted talk about what health supplements actually can impact your health based upon real data.
Snake Oil Superfoods? Solid scientific evidence for extra health benefits of certain foods showing tangible health effects
Here is another example of an interactive datagraphic related to transit data. This is taking real data and interactively visualizing the data, it is not biased, it reflects reality!
This tracker provides movement visualization of transit data published by transit agencies and operators from all over the world. The movements are mostly based on static schedule data. Wherever real-time data is available it is also included in the visualization.
Here is an example of actually changing data and making an interactive datagraphic that responds in real-time to updates. Imagine this on a larger scale in regards to impacts of drought or pollution that is updated instantly and can be used to model future results of present action.
Bus bunching happens because, if a bus gets delayed, then there will be more people waiting at the next stop than anticipated. The extra passengers’ boarding time makes the bus even later, and so on in a vicious cycle.
Record + Measure + Change = Impact
In a world where we are capturing more and more data at deeper and richer level’s we will see interactive datagraphics emerge as the de facto standard for understanding the real world around us.
I can only imagine how ideas will be conveyed in the very near future as intelligent machines and internet of things coupled with new big data analysis tools start to propel us into a new era of intelligence.
We need to commit to gathering more and more data and analyzing it in creative and interesting ways to discover associations and connections we may never have imagined before.
When we see the world in a clearer and better way we find real ways to make a positive impact, and that is a future worth visualizing!
References
http://www.fastcodesign.com/1671605/how-a-civil-war-soldier-invented-the-american-infographic
http://blog.visual.ly/making-it-funny-8-hilarious-infographics/
http://demonocracy.info/infographics/usa/us_debt/us_debt.html
http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/snake-oil-superfoods/
