Hi, ik ben Andries - @dretio

This is my 10-minute

presentation during Apps

for Ghent 2012 (dutch)

www.appsforghent.be

Co-founder “Bits of Love”, een digitale studio.

I started showing some

visualisations from our

www.bitsoflove.be studio

... en “Small Town Heroes”.Wij maken 2nd screens apps voor TV.

Some more visualisations

from

www.smalltownheroes.be,

a second screen for TV

company.

Connecting the dots, my first love.

Play “connecting the dots”

with your children if you

want them to become

dataviz people ;)

Reading the stats, my second.

Strategy games are the

perfect blend of Project

Management, Statistics

and Visualisations with a

strategy sauce on top.

That’s why I love them all.

Stories, my third.

These days we forget

about the importance of

stories and storytelling.

Not the marketing lingo,

but the real everyday stuff.

Niet over ... vorm

With my limited time,

I skipped some important

topics like : crappy

infographics...

Niet over ... history

..The rich history of

visualisations..

Niet over ... psychology

..The physical & psycho

aspects around

visualisations..

Niet over ... the future of dataviz

.. and the future of

dataviz. This example is

located on the airport of

Zürich and is awesome.

Observation Deck B

But.. about using the force wiselyI really want to talk about

powerful visualisations by

means of storytelling &

knowledge of the subject.

De basis van een goeie visualisatie is een verhaal & kennis van het onderwerp

In my opinion this

visualisation won gold at

Malofiej12 because it uses

great story mechanics.

Wat doe je met 1000 pagina’s confidentiële documenten?

How do journalists react

to this “open data/

sources” thing?

Fastcompany Wikileaks visualisation

Some make a Wordle out

of 1000 pages with great

information, to conclude

the word “REPORTS” has

a lot of occurences...

NYT Wikileaks visualisation

Others make great stories

like this viz by NYT, based

on the same documents

Data without context has no meaning. Data needs a background, a narrative that sucks the user mentally into the world of the data.

Narratives are fundamental in human reasoning and give humans the ability to assign meaning to their experiences (Laurillard 1998; Dickey 2006). Applications, whether games or data visualizations, have to incorporate a narrative in order to reach its full potential. According to Brown and Cairns (2004), it is the narrative that separates an engagement-application from an immersion-application. The more immersion the higher amounts of time, effort and attention an user will invest in the application. By integrating a narrative, or letting the data make up a story, the user will be much more invested, emotionally and mentally. The narrative functions as the motor.

Here I make the link

between games & data

visualisations, and the

necessity of a narrative to

reach “full potential”

We moeten verhalen vertellen

Another great example by

The Guardian

We moeten verhalen vertellen

Another by NYT

Inspiratie : comics

These are very special

visualisations you can find

in the book “Zachte Atlas

van Nederland”. It’s

awesome & full of stories.

Inspiratie : ads

Even when they are fake,

movies & ads & arts can

help us to create great

visualisation stories.

Vertrouw niet altijd designers :)

Warning : do not always

trust designers. This

article in Smashing

Magazine was a bloody

shame. Basic charts are

good!

Heatmap : zee of land ?

It’s a dog in a park - I had

some fun here with the

audience :)

Vertrouw je ogen niet Warning : do not always

trust designers. These

guys multiplied the wrong

variables in their circles..

Vertrouw je ogen niet .. with this result.

I think we should learn to

see these mistakes.

De basis van een goeie visualisatie is een verhaal & kennis van het onderwerp

This is the famous

“Facebook break-ups”

example. I want to show the

importance of “contextual &

cultural knowledge” for

finding stories

De basis van een goeie visualisatie is een verhaal & kennis van het onderwerp

Now, including the western

holidays scheme.

10% werklozen met een uitkering 30% werklozen met een uitkering

Gebied A Gebied B

90%

70%

De “actieve” bevolking regio Gent - Eeklo

I ended with an example

how to manipulate “open

data” for a “political agenda”.

First we take 1 source to

show “the lazy region”.

10% werklozen met een uitkering 30% werklozen met een uitkering

Gebied A Gebied B

90%

70%

50%

40%

40% uitkeringen van het OCMW 10% uitkering van het OCMW

De “actieve” bevolking regio Gent - Eeklo

As “an expert”, I know we

have to look for additional

data (contextual

knowledge!). So I added a

second source to define

“active people”, shifting the

map.

10% werklozen met een uitkering 30% werklozen met een uitkering

Gebied A Gebied B

90%

70%

50%

40%

40% uitkeringen van het OCMW 10% uitkering van het OCMW

40%

100%

10% ouder dan 65 jaar 60% ouder dan 65 jaar

De “actieve” bevolking regio Gent - Eeklo

Another “expert” adds

another important fact :

people > 65 years have

different stats.

This means adding a 3rd

source for “active”, resulting

in a 3rd new map.

data => interpretatie => visualisatie/

kennis onderwerp verhaalSo my message for this

crowd of open data fans

was : try to find stories, and

handle your data with care.

(this slide should be more

complex :)

Laat ons dus zoeken naar :

JournalistenProducers

Experts in het vakVerhalenvertellers

Die van onze data verhalen maken,die veel impact hebben op onze samenleving

I think our Open Data

community needs more

storytellers, experts,

journalists,.. and less “app

makers” ;)

Tnx !andries@bitsoflove.be

@dretio

www.bitsoflove.bewww.smalltownheroes.be

References

http://www.niemanlab.org/2011/10/word-clouds-considered-harmful/

http://www.albertoantoniazzi.com/

Belgische voorbeelden : Deredactie.be & DS - Bart De Neve

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2011/mar/22/middle-east-protest-interactive-timeline

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/08/27/us/preparations-for-hurricane-irene-and-reports-of-damage.html

http://projects.nytimes.com/guantanamo/

http://www.appsforghent.be