Looking Outwards 08

I looked at the 2012 lecture given by Fernada Viegas and Martin Wattenberg. Viegas is a Brazilian scientist who focuses on information visualization, she attended MIT. Wattenberg is an American scientist who is known for his data visualizations for companies like IBM and Google, he attended Brown, Stanford, and UC Berkeley.

I find what they do incredibly interesting and important. It isn’t to obvious how imperative data visualization is, but if data is not shown in a way that people can understand or are attracted to, they will not look at it. What I admire about how they work it that they account for the attractiveness of the visualizations, they go beyond just making the data legible. For example, with their visualization of wind speed and direction, they chose to depict the invisible force of wind in a way that actually makes they viewer “see” it, I knew that i was looking at wind, even though I, nor anyone, have never seen wind before. What I like most about their presentation is that they show the process work, the steps to their final product.

 

I specifically like the Wind Case Study (around minute: 17:30)

 

Martin Wattenberg: http://www.bewitched.com/

Fernada Viegas: http://fernandaviegas.com/