Week 1 Reading Post — The Truthful Art: Intro and Chapter I
Introduction
In his introduction Cairo begins with a short story about some educational drawings he made for his young daughter to explain various scientific phenomena. Throughout this process, Cairo drew out a number of main points that are crucial to any step of graphic designing:
1. in order to design an explanatory graphic, the information must first be correct, and the data must be reported accurately
2. being concise and clear is important, but not to the point over oversimplification
3. a good design should not be embellished, but rather structured effectively so as to communicate the message in an aesthetically appealing way
4. graphics and drawings function to support the encoded information
5. the combination of words with visuals is most effective for understanding
Cairo then moves into a section about what are commonly known as the “island of knowledge” and the “shoreline of wonder.” Again, he uses his daughter’s mind and the process of her understanding to create a visualization about the learning process as well as how the island and shorelines in any brain might expand when learning something new. Infographics and data visualizations are important because they communicate information and can therefore increase our understanding, islands, and shorelines. Beyond that, Cairo makes the point that good visualizations should stimulate further exploration and search for knowledge, and that each person might take away different stories from the same graphic; he uses Figure I.7 below to emphasize this point. To conclude these points, Cairo gives an overview of what a good visualization is:
1. reliable information
2. visually encoded so relevant patterns become noticeable
3. organized in a way that enables at least some exploration, when appropriate
4. presented in an attractive manner, but with honesty, clarity, and depth
The other crucial part of making graphic data illustrations is about the factors that come before the design itself, specifically the goal of making “candid” information graphics. Candid communication holds the purpose of enlightening and informing people, whereas strategic communication aims to manipulate the truth so as to shed the best light possible on the cause or company being advocated for. Cairo explains that while complete truth may not be a realistic goal, the search or attempt for truth is. Strategic and candid communication differ in that the latter begins with information, then analyzes it to discover the message, whereas the former does the opposite. Cairo gives the example of the Discovery Institute in Seattle, a non-profit that aims to convince people to believe in creationism through strategic communication. While their promotions and publications are not supported by much real information, this still holds serious consequences for the mindset of adults across America.
When getting information for the purpose of sharing it through data visualizations, one must always ask the source how, or on what grounds, they know their information to be true, and also how they know that they know it to be true. The internet and the nature of social media in this day and age poses enormous issues for the truthfulness of the content being published. Cairo, in answer to these questions and debates raised by the lack of candid information in our world today and the overload of strategic and false communication, brings up the elements of journalism that a good journalist will adhere to. His point, however, is that it’s not only journalists who should aim for these goals, that all of us should adhere to the truth and expand our islands of knowledge.
What I found most interesting about this introduction was Figure I.7 below; I thought that this graphic clearly shows how the field of neurology developed over the history of medical practice. The large number of grey lines intersecting and shifting behind those brought forward in color are visually quite intriguing, and add to the piece as a whole because they signify the many fields of medicine that are not necessarily highlighted in this piece, but which are important for the history of medicine nonetheless. These grey lines serve to draw emphasis to the ones displayed in color, and are therefore quite important for the graphic as a whole.
Another aspect of the introduction that I found interesting, and alarming, was the note about the Internet, social media, and the ways in which these aspects of our modern world contribute to misinformation and an overload of media. These issues should not be overlooked and seriously affect the usefulness and spread of data visualizations and graphic information designs that aim to inform the viewer of actually candid and true information.
Chapter 1
In Chapter 1, Cairo begins by defining a number of terms that will be used throughout the book and in the world of graphic data design in general:
1. visualization: any type of visual representation of information that is designed to communicate for the purpose of analyzation, discovery, exploration, etc.
2. chart: a display in which the data are encoded with symbols (Figure 1.1)
3. map: a depiction of a geographical area or representation of data that pertains to that area
4. infographic: a multi-section visual representation of information intended to communicate one or more specific messages
5. data visualization: a display of data designed to foster analysis, exploration, discovery, etc.
6. news application: a visualization that lets people relate the data being presented to their own lives
In explaining news applications, Cairo gives a few examples: a simulator, a calculator, an interactive visual database like Figure 1.6 below (Treatment Tracker), or the Wall Street Journal’s “Health Care Explorer” (Figure 1.7). Cairo then uses two visualizations by Jane Pong in the South China Morning Post to explain that the boundaries between infographics and data visualizations are not always clear. The two highlighted examples are very intriguing graphics that both convey information as well as stimulate curiosity. The main point, here, is that the terms listed above are not absolutes, and that designs and graphics can hold aspects of more than one term listed.
What I found most interesting in this chapter was the explanation and discussion about news applications. Figure 1.6 and Figure 1.7 were good examples of news applications and I personally think that these types of visualizations are highly popular with the general public, simply because they are interactive and people can apply them to their own personal lives. This is an important note to make, I think, because interactivity and applicability may be two driving forces in getting people to read and understand information, especially information that they might not normally know anything about, or care to learn about.
