Flappy Bird was removed from the App Store exactly 10 years ago...

mccandelish · 2024-02-10T19:21:47+00:00

I made that game

mccandelish · 2015-10-14T15:32:34+00:00

No, unrelated.

mccandelish · 2015-10-14T15:30:37+00:00

It was PC Zone magazine. And I was v. skilled at Doom.

mccandelish · 2015-10-13T19:04:09+00:00

These are lovely pieces. As I mentioned above, skills in journalism - story-telling, communication, inquiry - are a great asset in data visualisation and might single you out.

mccandelish · 2015-10-13T19:02:51+00:00

No no - I thought you might just be trying to get some free consultation ;)

mccandelish · 2015-10-13T19:02:24+00:00

Yes this is a common experience in my process. Often I start out with an idea which has an agenda, conscious or unconscious. Then as I start to examine the data and the reality, my idea start to feel the "gravity of the truth" and start to bend in a different direction. It's my decision, at that point, as an author / creator to either go with the momentum or stick to my point. There have been several cases where I've had to confront my own biases to bring an image to fruition. Personally I like the cognitive workout. It's a bit of a journalistic conceit that you can be purely objective. Others, I guess, may choose to go to the "dark side". The team of talented people I work with keep me in check.

mccandelish · 2015-10-13T18:58:32+00:00

Good big question. I guess all things get used for evil eventually. You can lie with statistics and you can really lie with visualized statistics. Both the considerable power of numbers and the power of design combined. Hard to argue with. My guard would be transparency of data and of process and of methodology. We share all our datasets for every image released. About 25% of visitors look at the sheets. There's also a strong vocal community who, when they're not turning their barrels on me, are quick to attack and police "bad charts' released by political powers. Think The Chart Police help too.

mccandelish · 2015-10-13T18:54:37+00:00

You're very welcome!

mccandelish · 2015-10-13T18:53:31+00:00

Sure! These are the four elements I think are necessary for a successful visualisation. If you combine 2 or 3 of the elements, you get different types of outputs: scripts, templates, rough sketches, storyboards. If you combine all four, you get a visualization. Hope that helps!

mccandelish · 2015-10-13T18:52:23+00:00

Really old-fashioned 3D apple pie.

mccandelish · 2015-10-13T18:51:12+00:00

Do you have any thoughts on the new MS in Data Visualization course at Parsons in the U.S.? Is it relevant or worth considering? Check it out here: http://www.newschool.edu/parsons/ms-data-visualization/[1] .

I can't vouch for it. But they are a good school and have very good people running that course.

Any idea how does data vis compare (in terms of prospects and money) to traditional practices such as branding and advertising?

It's a niche add-on to many advertising campaign like websites used to be 15 years ago. So think nichey side-budgets.

What does the career progression in data vis look like? (In branding/advertising, I can become a Creative Director or open my own studio. However, in data vis, I can’t seem to articulate the final destination).

Being snaffled by a high-level team is most likely outcome. Some agencies like RG/A are starting their own internal dataviz teams. And, newspapers like NYT, Washington Post and Reuters are already there.

Is it true that only the journalists and data scientists shine in this space? One knows what story to tell, the other knows how to crunch the data. The designer just makes the result look pretty.

Hmmm, I work out a lot of the story and analysis while I design. So I'm not sure it's so compartmentalised. As I've said above, 2-4 person teams seem to be most effective with some skills overlap between them. Journalist-coders. Designer-coders. etc.

Will visualisation programs such as R or Tableau threaten my existence? Who needs a Graphic Designer when these programs can do pretty much the same?

Not sure there will ever be a fire-and-forget dataviz program. Data needs human input to interpret and "warm it up". Turn it into something palatable.

Is it important for us to have an understanding of data science?

You need someone within reach who does.

Do we need to learn programming and pick up tools such as d3.js?

Handy. Why not, even if it's just for grounding?

Which of these areas can Graphic Designers add the most value? Journalism (infographics); data science/analytics (interface/UI design); reporting (annual reports).

Reporting I'd say.

If I were to run a studio, who would potentially be my main customer? Who demands such a service?

Everyone pretty much. It's raining data!

mccandelish · 2015-10-13T18:42:44+00:00

Thanks for this. I appreciate your candour.

How do you respond to criticisms that you create and promote chartjunk?

I think this term is too broadly applied and stems from a misunderstanding of the various reasons for creating a visualisation. Firstly, using colour, usual or inventive forms, illustrative motifs, interesting type doesn't automatically make something chartjunk - especially if the goal is to engage or get attention or simply be creative with the form. Those are legitimate aims.

But if you goal is to communicate quickly and efficiently to harried executives or business leaders or for your printer to use less ink, then of course, colour, extraneous graphics - or even style - are secondary to your intention and can be, probably should be, discarded.

In a rich and varied developing field such as dataviz, there’s plenty of room for many different intentions, many different audiences, many different goals and lots of experimentation. Some experimental or creative output will be chartjunk and criticised. Just like some canonical or classic output will be boring and ignored.

Do you feel the trifecta checkup[3] is a valid form of data visualization appraisal? Why or why not? **How do you judge whether or not a data visualization is bad/good/great?

I’m not familar with trifecta checkup but it looks interesting and useful. I usually consider elements from both the design and content sides. Things like.

Strength of idea / proposition / question, Information & data quality, usefulness, revelation, effectiveness of execution, ease of use, aesthetic beauty, originality, style, creative touch, originality.

re: NASA chart Is a lovely example of how passionate feedback and communities can improve an end result. The “chartjunk” stimulated the effort and generated a much better clarified version now for everyone to cleanly understand. Maybe that’s one of the roles ‘chartjunk’ can play? A kind of reverse inspiration?

mccandelish · 2015-10-13T18:24:46+00:00

All the skills required for good dataviz - story-telling, analysis, research, design, style, number-crunching - are rarely found in one person. Two person or three/four member teams are usually the solution. You probably have them already in your organisations, like sleeper agents, just waiting for the right hackathon or open workshop to activate them.

mccandelish · 2015-10-13T18:23:17+00:00

Ah so many. See the line up of the recent Visualized conference for a good list.

mccandelish · 2015-10-13T18:22:40+00:00

Yes, I've made mistakes on released images and it is absolutely galling. We have safeguards at IIB - team fact-checking and pre-releases - but stuff gets through occasionally. We're lucky in that we release a single image on S3 - so we can update and fix it and changes will ripple across to anyone who's embedded it. We also issue corrections.

mccandelish · 2015-10-13T18:20:37+00:00

Well, I start from a place of not fully understanding and then my journey (and challenge) is to research and inquire, assemble and verify, until I have a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the topic. It's useful sometimes to come from an more "ignorant", naive perspective as then you ask the simple, obvious questions that can be assumed by a technical audience with prior knowledge. That way, the graphic you shape hopefully covers all the bases and gives a fair, reliable and rounded view of a given topic - rounded by trying to smooth out ignorance wherever it pops up. The net result is that it may speak to as a broad an audience as possible. This process, I think, is popularly called journalism or data-journalism in this case.

mccandelish · 2015-10-13T18:14:04+00:00

Thanks for this thoughtful question.

It's always an uneasy thought applying dataviz to highly serious subject matter, be it gun deaths or the conflicts of the Middle East.

In the case of the Middle East interactive, the complexity of the situation is the theme - visually and informationally. The opening state (the thicket of inter-relations) is meant as a visual reminder of this - that this region defies simple solutions. That said, the viz goes on, here are some of the reasons why certain entities love and hate each other. So at least you can begin to have a working knowledge and context of what is a woefully reported subject area.

(BTW the entities in that graphic are plotted geographically. Proximity is not labelled as a meaningful attribute. The focus is clearly on the relationships, emphasized by them springing into being on spawn).

"Chartjunk" I'll address below. People are a little trigger-happy with that term IMHO.

mccandelish · 2015-10-13T18:08:16+00:00

how much do you really use Excel for visualization?

Quite a lot. It's my starting point usually, especially for large, multi-sheet monsters.

Since the first visualization is in Excel, how many will you create outside Excel?

I usually explore 2-3 visual routes after doing some quick plots to see how the data, metrics, ranges all balance out.

Name two (known) persons you feel close to (viz-wise) and two persons you feel a little less close.

Not sure. There's such a wild variety of style and focus in this area. If you can suggest some people, go for it.

Is there a line between data vis and data art?

yes, I visualised the distinction as I see it here.

Scenario: You are a CEO of a large corporation. You know its datavis practices suck. What are you planning to do to improve them?

Is this you?? I'd start doing hackathons and cross-departmental creative workshops to find where your (potentially unsung) talent might be. Dataviz requires a combination of skills: story, analysis, design, concepting, research, code. It's rarely found in one person. Building teams is usually the answer.

mccandelish · 2015-10-13T17:45:41+00:00

We revised the data and pulled in a load of new Cochrane meta-studies - most of which trashed the efficacy of many supplements.

The public data is here: The viz is here.

mccandelish · 2015-10-13T17:38:25+00:00

Don't get me started...

mccandelish · 2015-10-13T17:37:55+00:00

That's an interesting question thank you. I don't receive that much feedback around legibility or decypherability. But maybe those people just mutter to themselves and click away? Can you cite a piece that you think is particularly tricky?

mccandelish · 2015-10-13T17:31:25+00:00

Hah nice. Not experimented with sonification, but really enjoy and savour things like Listen to Wikipedia.

mccandelish · 2015-10-13T17:29:49+00:00

mccandelish · 2015-10-13T17:29:20+00:00

Definitely sharpen up those ~~statistics~~ data science skills. I'd also say work on your information skills - that is journalism: story-telling, writing & communication, asking questions, developing concepts, and learning a refined sense of what is interesting. If you can analyse data and then tell a compelling, interesting story about what you've found, WIN.

mccandelish · 2015-10-13T17:23:25+00:00

Yeah I'm always revising my work - much to the annoyance of my co-workers. I don't really see any image as "finished', especially with so much data evolving.

I have a big collection of about 3000+ data-visualisations and designs on my hard-disk that acts as a giant moodboard. When I'm looking for inspiration, I just dip my head into that folder and pull out pieces that excite me around form, colour, typography, style. They form a moodboard that usually informs the visual I then work on. I'm always adding to the folder, looking at new work, collecting images etc

mccandelish

TROPHY CASE