TweetCatcha seeks to uncover the organic nature of news as it travels through Twitter over time, by examining the movement of NY Times articles through Twitter.
Nick Hardeman + Bruce Drummond.
>> Presentation <<
The circular rings are rotated around a center point based on the time the news piece was posted. The size of the ring is based on the number of characters in the headline and different colors are used for each section (for purely aesthetic reasons). The dense area in the middle indicates that a majority of the headlines are around the same characters in length. Click on the image to view the visualization.
Here the length of the characters are represented as a equalizer-like histogram. Moving the mouse over the bars reveals the headline and generates/plays a pulse wave. The frequency is also based on the number of characters in each headline – low for shorter and high for longer headlines.
The mockup below is intended to be a generative tetris-like game. The pieces are generated based the headline that is displayed along with the piece. Each section is color coded and has a piece assigned to it. Higher points can be scored by attaching the pieces to headlines that are related based on terms or people mentioned.
Effectively Communicating Numbers
The opening example was a appropriate for setting the tone of the whitepaper. The paper establishes the fact that the main purpose for creating information graphics is to communicate the data in the clearest possible manner. Choosing the correct method to represent the data is key. The paper describes various charts and graphs and what situations they can be used in. It goes further to describe a step-by-step graph selection and design process. All-in-all this seems like a great resource to keep coming back to for reference.
Showing Complex Data
This reading talks about what informational graphics are and how to go about creating them, from the users perspective. How is the data organized? The reading talks about preattentive variables like size, shape, color, etc. that convey the information before a viewer pays conscious attention. The paper also describes how the data can be made more participative as opposed to a static visualization. User can interact with the data in many ways and analyze the data in the way that they. A majority of the patterns described here can be found in most modern day software, which we are familiar with. This paper provides a great description of these patterns and when, why they should be used.
Data-Ink and Graphical Redesign – Edward Tufte
This chapter lays emphasis on how data graphics should present the substance of the data so that it is quick and easy for reader’s to understand what the graphic is about. But isn’t that the whole point of data graphics? Not to say that these graphics can’t be presented in newer ways that are compelling and informative at the same time. I found the concepts covered – data-ink ratio, erasing principles and redundancy – common sense and things that can be easily overlooked when designing data graphics. Nonetheless, practicing these principles will prove to be useful in creating effective work.
The Database as System and Cultural Form: Anatomies of Cultural Narratives – Christiane Paul
This paper cites some great examples which would’ve been a lot better accompanied by images. It occurred to me that databases are such an integral part of our lives. Our daily interactions with databases in various forms are so common that they can be easily overlooked. All our information is held in these databases and can be utilized to draw relationships between various parameters to yield a variety of different and interesting stories. The concept of meta-narrative and how this is different from traditional narrative is interesting. The paper also talks about data structure and various forms in which it can be represented. This made me think about how the amount of databases and data is growing every second. And how the internet, which holds a lot of this data, has changed the world we live in today by making information easily accessible. There need to eventually be quicker and more efficient ways to store and access data as it grows so that future generations can benefit from these huge banks of information as we have and are from what is currently out there.
1. Narratives 2.0 is a series of pieces that visualize song data. The songs are broken down into channels assembled in a fan-like structure with lines growing out. The frequency of the channel changes the angles at which the lines are drawn and the level changes the color – orange for higher levels and white for lower. The uniformity and arrangement of the music is apparent and seems to form an abstract narrative.
2. Spectra is another source of inspiration. It is a news aggregator and the options for displaying the data are interesting.
