What we believe in. Dialogue

Fragment of an article in Tatlin Mono magazine — “Young architects 2014”

Dialogue with data is the principal concept of Habidatum. We distinguish several types of such dialogue.

“Technical“ type of dialogue: work with spontaneous data in the format of “game” — iterative analysis, when samples of data and points of view on them change through the alternation of modes of work with them (analytic modes). This functionality is implemented as an interactive visual analysis system (various analytic modes, dashboards, calculations and query constructors).

Habidatum Chronotope platform is as open to the user as possible; as we accumulate usage data, we are able to improve and expand its tools (modes of interaction with visualization and construction of queries to databases, etc.).

While visualization involves the display of preset hypotheses, the visual analysis allows you to change them, “playing” with the combinations of modes and layers of information. In this case, three basic requirements for working with spontaneous data are met: dynamism, granularity and interactivity (dialogue with information).

The term “visual analysis” is important not only because of the “analysis”. There is a special role of the adjective “visual”: graphic representation of data is critically important. In the case of spontaneous data, it is their visual/graphic representation that allows you to discover patterns and features, most of which are not discovered by tabular calculations.

“Anthropocentric” type of dialogue: no automatic system can exceed and fully replace the human analyst. A really effective platform is only formed by a dialogue between the automated algorithm and the analyst (data-driven & human-led/curated research).

It is the analyst who asks the system questions and gives it tasks; it is the analyst who interprets the result in one way or another. Habidatum creates an analytical language in which end users can engage in a dialogue with complex structures and plenty of information about the city.

Finally, dialogue as a principle is important to us in the context of market education. The theme is still new — and the professional discussion has only started to develop.

Thank you for reading. Appreciate your comments!