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文件名称：A Practical Guide to Designing with Data.pdf
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文件格式：PDF
更新时间：2022-09-10 07:38:15
Practical Guide Designing Data
Over the years, I have been digging through large data sets both for
work and pleasure. I love numbers, charts, graphs, visualizations,
zeitgeists, raumzeitgeists, infographics and old maps. Getting to
peek into what companies like Google get to see on a daily basis
– trends, fads, search volume, relatedness, all bundled up in an
interesting illustration – makes my day. Some people re-read the
same book over and over; I can stare at a dense illustration and
re-read its story. It makes me ask, “What caused these numbers?
Where did they all come from?” It has been estimated that the
Large Hadron Collider produces fifteen petabytes (fifteen million
gigabytes) of data a year. Itʼs impossible to look at a table of
fifteen petabytes of information – there has to be a graphical
representation for anyone to comprehend data at this volume.
This is what excites me: the challenge of how to take these
boring numbers and design something more compelling. To tell
the story behind the data, we need to stop grasping for the perfect
visualization and instead return to the basic language of charts
and graphs. Only then can we begin to uncover the meaning and
relationships the data has to offer.
Beyond the basic bar charts and line graphs taught in
schools, a new breed of illustrations has recently appeared. These
new ʻvisualizationsʼ are an attempt to explain the underlying
information with a powerful visual impact. They take complex
ideas and distil them into beautiful graphics revealing the
interrelationships in the data. Some are so brilliantly executed
that there are now annual awards for newspaper and magazine
infographics to highlight their achievements. Sadly, over recent
years terms such as visualization and infographic have been
bandied around with almost no regard to their proper use or
meaning. Existing chart types and even slide shows have been
saddled with the more gratuitous term ʻinfographsʼ to sound
more impressive. There is a new vernacular in the realm of data
representation, but that doesnʼt mean we should ignore the
underlying principles and best practices of humble charts and
graphs. Once you have mastered the basics, more complex designs
and visualizations become easier to create.