Why on earth was I listening to the Chew Lips over and over again, whilst I was on holiday? Who knows :s

I’ve been studying various types of information design and data visualisation concepts recently. The work I’m seeing seems to fall into two categories: Information/Data Art or Infographics.

Both types of work have very different purposes and I think people—real decision markers—seem to misunderstand the nuances. Data Art is not to be confused with true information design as information design is user-centered and drives focus toward effective absorption.

Examples of good information designers include David McCandless and Edward Tufte as they focus on information clarity and absorption, whilst Stefanie Posavec’s work is art extrapolated from data.

I’m meeting companies that are including all types visualisations into their software and, disappointingly, many of them are missing the point—despite significant investment. I have seen networks diagrams, node analysis graphs and pie charts that move when you poke them, but all the frills haven’t made any information more comprehensible.

I want to see visual metaphors that demonstrate associations and numerical stories that document movement and key insights. Client-Agency relationships are changing; more often than not, the client will have the keys to the same dashboards as the agency and for these reasons designers need to take a step back and apply some Tufte design principles.

Can you tell that I like Fridays.

Generated via Xefer

Via Russell Davies

Via ChartPorn

I’ve been tinkering with Processing recently, well trying to tinker with it. The coding skills are not quite up to scratch (I am working on it though (trying to anyway), would love to program my own DV)

It’s Open Source language for specifically creating and prototyping data visualisations, the visualisations do not render in Safari or Chrome just yet (same rendering engine); however, I’m sure the community is working on it.

From the horses mouth:

Processing is a programming language, development environment, and online community that since 2001 has promoted software literacy within the visual arts. Initially created to serve as a software sketchbook and to teach fundamentals of computer programming within a visual context, Processing quickly developed into a tool for creating finished professional work as well.

Further fuelling my recent obsession for DV, @miketeasdale introduced me to the Google Chart API. It’s not quite as slick as processing but you get the idea, charts which look like the output of Google Trends and Ad-Planner.

Fun, Fun, Fun – No Sleep

Well it’s no secret that I have small obsession with web applications and really damn cool data visualisation concepts. Recently I digged a bit deeper into the anatomy of web applications and now I’m digging a bit deeper into anatomy of DV concepts.

There are so many cool DV concepts about, some of them are really useful and some are, erm…not! Anyway I’ve been been doing some diagnostics on the some of the ones that I like.

Most of the information that you see in them is normally pulled through via feeds, the data is then manipulated and made to look good using flash/silverlight, java and ajax in some cases. So there we are, as amazing as they look, there’s nothing overly complex in the construction of DV concpets.

I think the real skill lies with conception, we’re going to see many more DV concepts pop up this year, many of them will of course be related to twitter.

Send me links to any that you come across.

Data Visualisation (I will use an s and not a z…the US spelling) is a buzzword that has been flying around for quite some time now, there are numerous articles on the web, which discuss really good examples of designers getting creative with basically scrapping data and presenting it in really cool ways.

I was yet to see an example of a “data visualisation” concept that was really useful as well as being really good to look at.

I have a tendency to question the usefulness of concepts when they are first introduced to the online community, this is primarily because clients think in the same way. The first thing a client does is pose an objection or question…how useful is this? Will people use it? What are the benefits?

Virgin have done really well with the Virgin eye, however, unless you’re really into Virgin as a brand what value does this concept really provide to a mass target audience? Some may argue that prospects ready to buy a product or service from Virgin may use the service to see what other people are saying about the brand or its products, however, I feel this may only apply to a minority.

Something as grand and luxurious as a “Data Visualisation” concept should provide a value exchange for a broader audience as the concept itself depicts how forward thinking a brand really is.

MSNBC and their digital agency, whoever they are, have really hit the nail on the head with Spectra. Spectra is an RSS news-reader with really cool data visualisation, in addition to good aesthetics Spectra really provides functionality that people will keep coming back to use over and over again.