This TED talk really opened my eyes in terms of the macro statistics present in the world. My life revolves around a few things like my diet, my work etc. but if we combine a country’s national data along with each individual’s personal data, the numbers are uncountable and now look at it from a world point of view: infinite. I believe that the purpose of watching this talk was to focus more on ethnography. The research process of the information and how a certain design will bring that information to the life. Data visualization becomes a form of observatory research where the web makes it much easier to collect and share data.
I learnt that one of the most important benefits of visualization is that it allows us to step into huge amounts of data in simple digestible graphics. The image retains power not only as the documentation of our worldly doings but also as evidence of different ruptures in data. Everything depends on the concept of layering, establishing hierarchies and making them clear. It’s the proportions, colors, patterns and sizes that make it a landscape however challenging the designers in a way that the viewers don’t get lost only in the visuals but in the matter itself. Eyes, the primary sense organs, can actually change perspective and bring more clarity to the same data that our ears might hear.
What really intrigued me is the way David McCandless played with proportions. Having data in absolute form is important but it becomes more distinct and comparable if we put it in a relative space. It reminded me of how our exam grading would work, while we would receive our marks for our papers as percent, our grades would be in percentile; taking the world average into consideration. There is an entire shift in understanding with relative figures. I wonder if putting everything in a relative dynamic would encourage humans make more efficient choices and decisions? This is about constructed environments because it includes the theme of space. How knowledge and understanding could be compressed into a smaller space that makes more sense?
The TED talk:
https://www.ted.com/talks/david_mccandless_the_beauty_of_data_visualization
