By Olivier LorrainApril 8, 2010

www.olivierlorrain.com

“The main goal of data visualization is its ability to visualize data, communicating information clearly and effectivelty.”

Vital Friedman, editor-in-chief of www.smashingmagazine.com

Source: www.census.gov/ipc/www/idb/informationGateway.php

Impact of One child policy 1979

China’s Population: 1 330 000 000

India’s Population: 1 173 000 000

Source: www.census.gov/ipc/www/idb/inform

ationGateway.php

Which country will be the most populous in 2030?

Temperature (C)

Task in a Power plant: Monitor Temperature of Liquid B

56.2

Digital

Dial

Temperature (C)

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 130 140 150 160 170 180 190 200

Temperature of Liquid BTemperature (C)

Time (min)

Task in a Power plant: Monitor Temperature of Liquid B

Threshold

Threshold

7

Gender balance• 12% of corporate board members from the sample were female• 21% of the lines are women

Cluster• West vs East

Toby Segaran - Corporate map: http://dev.mqlx.com/~toby/corporate_map.png

8

Gender balance• 12% of corporate board members from the sample were female• 21% of the lines are women

Cluster• West vs East

Toby Segaran - Corporate map: http://dev.mqlx.com/~toby/corporate_map.png

Growth of WalMart blog.kiwitobes.com/?p=51

Address Year

1210 Giant Drive 1962

1238 Doit road 1963

18 34th Ave 1963

388 Space road 1963

239 Alabama road 1964

908 Weist St 1964

76 Soda Road 1964

72 Wato road 1964

56 St John St 1965

7298 Brooks road 1965

236 Fride 1965

3800 US stores in 2005

A

B

C

D

E

A

B

C

D

E

A

B

C

D

E20

7

15

20

38

Visual bias – Avoid 3D graphs

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40

A

B

C

D

E

Source: www.solidsourceit.com/products/SolidSX-source-code-dependency-analysis.html

More about beauty then useful

Helps track expenses vs savings

Source: www.bnz.co.nz

Helps uncover patterns

Source: www.bnz.co.nz

Data visualisation could be a powerful communication tool

Always bear in mind the users / audience of the data visualisation

Toby Segaran - http://kiwitobes.com

Gap Minder – Debunking myths about the “third world”

◦ www.gapminder.org/videos/ted-talks/hans-rosling-ted-2006-debunking-myths-about-the-third-world/

Data Visualisation tools

◦ www.yworks.com/en/products.html

◦ www.graphviz.org/

Edward Tufte – Visual Explanationswww.edwardtufte.com/tufte

Free data

◦ Freebase – www.freebase.com

◦ OECD - http://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx

◦ Statistic NZ - http://search.stats.govt.nz/nav/0

Demographic

◦ David Foot, Boom, Bust and Echo -http://www.footwork.com/book.asp

Blog: www.olivierlorrain.com

Flickr: olorrain