Before I begin, let me concede that there is a good chance that, by the time I get to the end, this post might not go anywhere, it might not hang together well and might be rather incohesive. It is my first day back after holidays and I’m not on top of my game yet.
However, I feel a need to get this collection of thoughts out of my head so let’s just go for it, shall we, and see what happens?
Apologies if you get lost along the way!
Interpretations
One of the experiences from teaching data visualisation that intrigues me most is witnessing the variety of ways in which participants will interpret ‘things’ differently. In the same room, surrounded by probably fairly similarly minded people, looking at the same problem, people will set off on their own unique journeys of interpretation, often in totally different directions. It may be the response to a task to create a visual concept, to critically evaluate other works, to explore data and find potentially interesting angles, but regardless, the richness of the sessions comes from this variety and difference.
The minute we take on a conceptual task such as a visualisation project, forming initial sparks of ideas (mental visualisations) about the possible options we might consider, we forge our own unique paths. The best practice processes we follow will provide a certain rigour (let the data shape the result, what does the audience need blah blah blah) but each subsequent journey will be different.
As a visual metaphor, I often imagine this separation of solution directions to be characterised by the structure Moritz came up with for Notibilia, with each strand a different person’s interpretation of a possible solution.
Look at the visualizing.org contests pages and browse through the gallery of entries proposed as solutions against the same brief and under essentially the same conditions (data, timescales etc.). Every one is different.
The thing is, very few of us are robots. I’ve suspected one or two in the past but, largely, we are all people shaped by our experiences, backgrounds, tastes, cultures, moods, irrationalities. We are complex and subjective beings. The interpretations we come up with for how to resolve such challenges are heavily influenced by us and our tendencies that it is to be expected that we go down such different paths.
Doodling and Perceptions
I was catching up with my many outstanding RSS feeds this morning and saw this post from Kevin Quealy poking fun at Shan Carter for his subjective sketch of the USA.
Whilst it is undeniably embellished, what I love about this illustration is it being an example of how sketching our perceptions and understandings often reveals a distorted view of life (regardless of and compensating for different illustrative skills of course). Ask 10 people to sketch the map of the US, of the UK or anywhere frankly and you’ll get 10 very different interpretations.
You might recall the experimental ‘communal’ project built by Aaron Koblin last year called ‘The Single Lane Super Highway‘, where participants were invited to draw a car, any car they wished, based around the axis of two wheels and the instruction to point it in the right direction. 50,000 hand-drawn cars were submitted and helped to create a never-ending parade of different possibilities.
As a life-long doodler I adored this project. I loved seeing the infinite different imaginative ways that people conceived to be a representation of ‘a car’. It also made me think about our perceptions and the pre-programmed nature of how we view the world.
When I was a kid and drew a car I would always put a plume of smoke squirting out of the exhaust. All kids did the same. These days, only the crappiest of cars leave such a visible trace (unless it is the bleakest of winter days) so I would imagine kids these days don’t include the exhaust fumes.
As I was back then, the kids today are shaped by their own experiences and observations. Our perceptions are based on what we remember and what we believe, rarely what ‘is’. Sometimes they are helpful, sometimes they can be unhelpful, mostly they come down to habit.
This kind of pre-programmed nature can be quite lazy and eventually automatic. On a related but tangental note, I came across an article recently that I found fascinating because it revealed that I and about everyone I know has been playing Monopoly wrong. For ever. That’s because habit has taken over the consciousness of challenging the norm and taking a look at the instructions for the first time since 1985.
The potential power of the best visualisation work can help to alleviate such perceptions. Think about the nature of Hans Rosling’s famous talk – ‘to debunk myths about the developing world’. Think about the impact of this recent video framed around the misconceptions about inequality.
On the other hand, some visualisations rely too heavily on us having consistent and well-informed levels of understanding. Certain cartograms, for example, need us to have a decent appreciation of existing size, shape and position of geographical units in order to be able to frame our interpretation of change. Very few of us have that foundation perception to make these sufficiently effective portrayals of data.
An attempt at a conclusion
To try and bring some sort of cohesive lesson to this post, let me try to summarise my general points:
- A single view of the ‘best’ way to design and visualise data will never be possible because it will can only ever be applied to a system that involves the non-uniform, complex and irrational world of people.
- To be an effective visualisation designer requires you to maintain an open mind. Embrace the initial sparks of imagination and ideas but park them and let the process you subsequently follow possibly lead back to those same ideas, don’t be constrained by them.
- Challenge everything. Force yourself to snap out of the potential for pre-programmed, habitual and highly subjective patterns of thinking, such patterns might be quite automatic and served you well previously but may become restrictive and divergent
- Accept that everyone is different. You can never achieve perfection: not everyone will get your piece, will like your work or will draw the same conclusions. Don’t let this inevitable shortcoming hang heavily on your shoulders