Data visualisation is the act of presenting complex data in a clear way. It is crucial for businesses, governments, and individuals dealing with vast amounts of data. By using visual aids, such as graphs and maps, data visualisation helps us identify patterns and relationships that would otherwise be hard to notice. It is a powerful means of communication that enables us to share information easily. In today's data-rich world, data visualisation is a vital skill for anyone working with data.
It is important to consider the way in which you visualise data as there is a risk you can present it in misleading ways. This can often be the case if a designer does not present the data in an appropriate method. It can also be used intentionally however to portray a certain point to benefit someone e.g. the company that published the graphic. It can be harmful in this respect. At it’s core, data visualisations should provide impartial insight to data.
This designer tried to create a new version of a pie chart and so confused about which information is more important, the percentage or the amount of money, that they lied to viewers. 39% became equal to 22%, while 10% took more place than 26%. This is very confusing and misleading data for a viewer. The question is about the money that was spent, but the percentage jumps right into your face screaming about the colours it uses. As a result, it is not so simple to answer the question, and your brain is fatigued of figuring out what is going on.
It was very informative and relevant to our current project to have a look at the Feltron reports by Nicholas Felton. Mainly I’m just fascinated at how in-depth these are. It almost is unbelievable how he has documented a year of his life to such an extent and has humbled me great lengths to any feelings of difficulty I had when documenting a week of mine. Assessing these from a design point of view, thee range of data visualisations shown in these anthologies I find very impressive. These dashboards incorporate many differing graphs in a very cohesive way.
Something I have learned from these reports, is that excellent data visualisation can manifest in very simple ways, such as a table or a bar chart. This will be something that I take into my project — I don’t need to reinvent the wheel in order to produce an excellent week in my life dashboard.
I’m looking forward to this next section of the module. In term 1, I found that data visualisation was something that always interested me in my research. I found myself returning to explore data visualisation often. I find that I enjoy aspects of design that have real life, human centred basis. I think data visualisation is a great tool and something that is integral in society. I would like to conduct a good bit of research within my project work to find a style of visualisation that I like. I feel as though there is a temptation to go down a very typical route within my dashboard where I present something very typical and reminiscent of a dashboard similar to that of an iPhone health app. I would quite like to explore creating something in a similar quirky vein of that of the Feltron reports.