The Big Picture: Data Visualization Trend and Web Design

Wikipedia defines Data Visualization as “the study of the visual representation of data, meaning ‘information that has been abstracted in some schematic form, including attributes or variables for the units of information’.”  Basically saying that data visualization (or information graphics) make it easier for us to understand complex information. One of the earliest and most famous information graphics ever created is Charles Joseph Minard’s depiction of the collapse of Napoleon’s Army in Russia, created in 1869, and shown here:

Minard came from a background in mathematics and eventually moved into civil engineering, all the while collecting statistical information and displaying it graphically. Minard’s information graphic of Napoleons’ Army later became the inspiration for Google’s Flow Visualization, which enables users to visualize and quickly find insights about how visitors flow through their site.

Modern Infographics
Early forms of information design were adapted into the “information age” and used in modern digital applications. Web site analytics, stock charts and public opinions all use various forms of graphics to organize and display complex information in a way that has never been communicated before. Visual.ly, an online community where people contribute and share their own data visualizations (ranging from The Evolution of the Geek as pictured right, to Communication Through The Ages), elevates data visualization to a truly artistic level.

As you can see, people are finding all different types of ways to display information and make sense of an incomprehensible amount of data.

Here are a few more examples of data visualization to explore:

Jonathan Harris traveled to Bhutan in 2007 to collect data about happiness, of all things.  Harris mapped people’s happiness using surveys and used balloons to paint a picture of the happiness level of that country.  The result is absolutely stunning.

Nicholas Feltron, a one-man census of sorts, creates ‘tapestries’ of annual activity, represented in a series of graphs, maps, statistics, and more. Feltron is also a part of the design team at Facebook.