Design for Information

Transcription

1 Design for Information Civic Innoation Lab Feb 17, 2015 Matt Wizinsky Jon Chambers Information Aesthetics

2 Design for Information Isabel Meirelles Information Aesthetics Civic Innovation Lab

3 Information Design Taxonomies Hierarchical Structures: Trees Relational Structures: Networks Temporal Structures: Timelines & Flows Spatial Structures: Maps Spatio-Temporal Structures: Space & Time Information Aesthetics Civic Innovation Lab

4 Hierarchical Strucutres

5 Hierarchical Systems with ordered sets where elements and/or subsets are organized in a given relationshiop to one another, both among themselves and within the whole. In general, we can describe them by the properties of elements and the laws that govern them. Hierarchy: A body of persons or things ranked in grades, orders, or classes, one above another. (Oxford English Dictionary) Information Aesthetics Civic Innovation Lab

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8 Pre-attentive Processing Pre-attentive processing is the unconscious accumulation of information from the environment. Can increase the performance of the following cognitive tasks: target detection, boundary detection, region tracking, and counting/estimation. A series of features has been identified as preattentively processed, and they can be organized by form, color, motion, and spatial position. Information Aesthetics Civic Innovation Lab

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10 Hierarchical Strucutres: Tree Maps

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12 Newsmap by Marcos Weskamp (marumushi) Information Aesthetics Civic Innovation Lab

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14 Relational Structures: Networks

15 Relational Structures: Networks Organizing data for which relationships are key to the system, not the individual qualities. Focused to study the patterns of connections between elements in the system. Whereas traditional social-science research methods such as surveys focus on individuals and their attributes (e.g., gender, age, income), network scientists focus on the connections that bind individuals together, not exclusively on their internal qualities or abilities....adding a critical dimension that captures the connective tissue of societies and other complex interdependencies. Ben Shneiderman Information Aesthetics Civic Innovation Lab

16 Relational Structures: Basic Elements Networks are collections of nodes and links with a partiulcar structure, or topology. A node can be a person, a machine, a cell, and so on. A link represents the relations between two nodes. For example, on internet, nodes are computers or routers, and links are cables or wireless connections. When all nodes in a network are of the same type (i.e., a friendship network), the network is call unimodal (one mode) or unipartite. When there is more than one type of node, networks are called multimodal or multipartite. Information Aesthetics Civic Innovation Lab

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19 Node-Link Techniques Labels carry important information but can be difficult to effectively position them, given the complexitiy of networks. _Place labels inside nodes (doesn t work in dense areas) _Interaction: rollover/click to reveal node or link info _focus+context: keep contextual view but only reveal detail of a selected area Reduce the number of nodes and links to simplify: _use threshholds to toggle on/off visible nodes & links _collapse nodes into clusters _enable user to filter data to make nodes/links visible Information Aesthetics Civic Innovation Lab

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21 Visualizing Information Flow in Science citation data from scientific journals Information Aesthetics Civic Innovation Lab

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25 They Rule by Josh On, Information Aesthetics Civic Innovation Lab

26 Community Structure: Universal Exposition, Milan, Information Aesthetics Civic Innovation Lab

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29 Temporal Structures: Timelines & Flows

30 Temporal Structures Time is an abstract concept, thus, most of the terminology we use for time is based on our physical experiences of space. The time is a moving object metaphor is based on the correlation between an object moving towards us and the time it takes to get to us. The same correlation is the basis for the time is a container metaphor (as in he did it in ten minutes )... Events and actions are correlated with bounded time spans, and this makes them container objects. (Metaphors We Live By, Lakoff & Johnson, ) Information Aesthetics Civic Innovation Lab

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33 Joseph Priestley ( ) published in 1765 the first of a series of timelines, the Chart of Biography. Among Priestley s innovation sis the use of lines to represent duration: line lengths stand for the duration of lives. Information Aesthetics Civic Innovation Lab

34 This Diagram of the Causes of Martality in the Army in the East was devised by the British nurse Florence Nightingale and published in It is a polar graph, not a pie chart, such that the radius of each wedge depicts the number of deaths for each month. Color stands for the types of death causes: preventable diseasees are in blue, war wounds in red, and fatalities in black. Information Aesthetics Civic Innovation Lab

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38 Spatial Structures: Map

39 Spatial Structures: Maps We encounter the term map, as well as the act of mapping in diverse fields of knowledge. All with the shared characteristic of being a diagram or collection of data showing the spatial distribution of something or the relative positions of its components. Information Aesthetics Civic Innovation Lab

40 Spectrum of Cartographic Scales and Information Aesthetics Civic Innovation Lab

41 Non-spatial or Thematic Data mapping. One of the most important data attributes is often dimension. Data can have zero, one, two, or three dimensions, such as point data (a person or building), an aggregated value of population (quantitative), or area such as population density (quantiative). Discrete data are composed of individual items (such as cities). Sometimes discrte data, such as population, is transformed into continuous data, as in population densities within a city. Information Aesthetics Civic Innovation Lab

42 Visual Variables. Basic graphic elements & their semantics: Point: no dimension. place. Line: one dimension. length & direction. Plane: two dimensions. space & scale. Information Aesthetics Civic Innovation Lab

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44 Election Results, 2008 New York Times Graduated Symbol Maps use the visual variable of size to proportionally represent magnitudes of thematic discrete data. Information Aesthetics Civic Innovation Lab

45 Graduated Symbol Maps & Scale Information Aesthetics Civic Innovation Lab

46 Chloropleth Maps are perhaps the most popular technique for representing statistical data using area symbols. Choropleth maps typically diusplay data that have been aggregated by administrative (or geographic) units the area symbols and the values hafe been normalized (e.g., densities, ratios, averages). Information Aesthetics Civic Innovation Lab

47 Isarithmic Maps represent real or abstraact three-dimensional surfaces by depicting continuous phenomena. There are two kinds of lines of equal value used to demarcate continuous surfaces on the map: Isometric lines show distribution of values that can be referenced to points. Isopleth lines show distribution of of values that cannot be referenced to points. Information Aesthetics Civic Innovation Lab

48 Spatio-Temporal Structures

49 Spatio-Temporal Structures: Space & Time All changes require time to become something else: to transform, remodel, reorganize, grow, shrink, disappear, &c. Human activity is immersed in space and time, and we constantly reason about both, making decisions about where and when we are, were, or will be. Data belonging to both space and time are found in diverse domains and include mobility, dispersion, proliferation, diffusion, &c. Information Aesthetics Civic Innovation Lab

50 Charles Minard s map of Napoleon s disastrous Russian campaign of The graphic is notable for its representation in two dimensions of six types of data: the number of Napoleon s troops; distance; temperature; the latitude and longitude; direction of travel; and location relative to specific dates. Information Aesthetics Civic Innovation Lab

51 Pedro Cruz, et al. Traffic in Lisbon, In the left sequence, recent paths are color-coded by speed. In the right, slow vehicles are depicted in red, making the metaphor of a living organism with circulatory problems. Information Aesthetics Civic Innovation Lab

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53 Deb Roy, HouseFly and WordScape, Information Aesthetics Civic Innovation Lab

54 Your Task: Design this thing!