« Previous Entries

Category

tufte

03.08.10

Piece de resistance: Data viz wrapup CAR, class, data visualizations, django, projects, tufte | (0)
And, scene. That's a term borrowed from theater, it's used as an act or scene closes. My giant Chicago art gallery persistence project is completed. We've got a trend article that uses CAR techniques, and a Flash visualization and a searchable database. The main thrust to the story is that of the galleries that existed in Chicago in 1990, about half have survived. What's enabled them to survive, though, has varied. And while I can give you the overall picture, maybe you, as someone interested in the topic, care more about a certain medium or gallery or part of ...
02.15.10

Visual confections are more than mere presentation class, data visualizations, theory, tufte | (1)
Data visualization. It's one of those terms that can mean so many things. I say I'm doing an independent study on data visualization this quarter. That's true. But a better description would be "data visualizations for journalism." I've talked about this with people before, a lot of pieces are gorgeous, and they do convey information, but they don't tell a story that informs the viewer in a useful way. Sure, the colors used in Flickr photos is data, and if you represent it visually, that is a visualization. But that doesn't make it appropriate for a news Web site. It's ...
02.09.10

Repetition, repetition: The power of multiples class, tufte | (0)
Teachers are true heroes in today's society, I owe so much to almost every one that I've ever had the privilege of working with. As the daughter of an elementary school teacher, and from teaching some classes on my own, I know that repetition is a key part of passing knowledge from your brain to my brain. And if you think about it, so much of what we do as journalists is a form of teaching, as we inform the public. That's why repetition can be a very valuable technique in data visualization, and Tufte devoted a ...
01.30.10

Parallelism: Packing information into visualization class, data visualizations, tufte | (0)
Information is fascinating at many different levels. Show me a simple graph of the components that make up a whole, that tells me something. I've found almost anything is more interesting when looked at across time, since it adds another dimension. This also helps with analysis, because outliers or rapid changes are often related to historical events. Compare a few data sets across time, and you have more perspective, and even more information. The ebb and flow of the use of trains in border crossings is interesting on its own, but by comparing it to the ebb ...
01.25.10

Personal reflection: Tufte’s messing with my head theory, tufte | (0)
My eyes have been opened by the readings I've been doing from Tufte. While I only assigned myself "Visual Explanations," I'm beginning to feel as if I want to soak up as much of his work as possible. So, I went to my advisor's office (Rich Gordon), where the walls are lined with what feels like an infinite number of CAR/data/viz/new media books, and procured Tufte's other three works. I've been perusing them -- read "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information" from cover to cover, and have only skimmed the other two so far. Continue Reading...
01.25.10

Keep it subtle, stupid: Differentiating data values in visualizations class, tufte | (0)
I'm not anything resembling a visual genius, but I like to believe I have enough of an eye that I can tell what works and what doesn't. The reason Tufte's books are so helpful is that they tell me why something works, and give me rules so I know what I can and can't do. That's why I have great appreciation for the Tufte chapter of the week: "The Smallest Effective Difference" in my ongoing exploration of "Visual Explanations." (I'm also reading his other books on the side, and more on that in the coming week.) Continue Reading...
01.18.10

Committing fact errors in visualizations class, data visualizations, tufte | (0)
At Medill, there's a wonderful tradition called the "Medill F." Make a factual error of any sort, and you fail the assignment. The sadistic part of me likes it -- a journalist's job is to tell the truth. If you miss the mark, you've failed the public, and failed at your job for the day. Harsh but true. My only Medill F was writing down the wrong day for an exhibit closing. I'll never forget that one. Why do you care, you ask? Because it's an example of just how simple it is to make a factual error. That's something I've ...

« Previous Entries