“Data presentation can be both beautiful, elegant and descriptive. There is a variety of conventional ways to visualize data - tables, histograms, pie charts and bar graphs are being used every day, in every project and on every possible occasion. However, to convey a message to your readers effectively, sometimes you need more than just a simple pie chart of your results. In fact, there are much better, profound, creative and absolutely fascinating ways to visualize data. Many of them might become ubiquitous in the next few years.

So what can we expect? Which innovative ideas are already being used? And what are the most creative approached to present data in ways we’ve never thought before?”

“From navigating the Web in entirely new ways to seeing where in the world twitters are coming from, data visualization tools are changing the way we view content. We found the following 16 apps both visually stunning and delightfully useful.” (Thanks Mapping-news.com!)

“Many Eyes is a bet on the power of human visual intelligence to find patterns. Our goal is to “democratize” visualization and to enable a new social kind of data analysis. Jump right to our visualizations now, take a tour, or read on for a leisurely explanation of the project. All of us at the Visual Communication Lab are passionate about the potential of data visualization to spark insight. It is that magical moment we live for: an unwieldy, unyielding data set is transformed into an image on the screen, and suddenly the user can perceive an unexpected pattern. As visualization designers we have witnessed and experienced many of those wondrous sparks. But in recent years, we have become acutely aware that the visualizations and the sparks they generate, take on new value in a social setting. Visualization is a catalyst for discussion and collective insight about data.”

“There is a new term ‘Information aesthetics’ that is starting to be seen with more frequency across the web. What is ‘information aesthetics’? Well for a head start, pop over to Information Aesthetics and take a quick look at some of the recent blog postings. It’s essentially the science (or the art) of visually representing data by understanding the emotional values and responses of the individual. ‘Data beautification’ if you will. Its obvious that beautiful things are more enjoyable to look at, and better to learn from.”

“Inspired by Manovich’s definition of information aesthetics, this weblog explores the symbiotic relationships between creative design and the field of information visualization, in what could be coined as ‘creative information visualization’.”

“This site provides resources for hands-on learning in research methods and statistics. Visualizing Statistical Concepts — use computer graphics to understand statistical concepts.”

“Information visualization is an emerging scientific discipline. Advances in computer graphics, human-computer interfaces, databases and networks have created a critical need for automatically-generated displays of complex, semi-structured information. Many examples arise in domains ranging from Internet engineering to the exploration of biological databases.”

“Information visualisation is the visual presentation of information spaces and structures to facilitate their rapid assimilation and understanding… These lecture notes have evolved over several years of teaching and talking about InfoVis.” Lecture Notes by Dr. Keith Andrews, Graz University of Technology (Draft Version of 6 March 2000).

“An illustrated chronology of innovations by Michael Friendly and Daniel J. Denis: The graphic portrayal of quantitative information has deep roots. These roots reach into histories of thematic cartography, statistical graphics, and data visualization, which are intertwined with each other. They also connect with the rise of statistical thinking up through the 19th century, and developments in technology into the 20th century. From above ground, we can see the current fruit; we must look below to see the its pedigree and germination. There certainly have been many new things in the world of visualization; but unless you know its history, everything might seem novel.”

“Information Visualization is the use of computer-supported interactive visual representations of abstract data to amplify cognition. Whereas scientific visualization usually starts with a natural physical representation, Information Visualization applies visual processing to abstract information. This area arises because of trends in technology and information scale. Technically, there has been great progress in high-performance, affordable computer graphics. At the same time, there has been af a rapid expansion in on-line information, creating a need for computer-aid in finding and understanding them. Information Visualization is a form of external cognition, using resources in the world outside the mind to amplify what the mind can do.”

“A true science of data visualizations requires both a theory of perception and of computer graphics. However, visualization designers have paid relatively little attention to perceptual issues. In this article, I outline how knowledge of human visual perception and physiology can lead to more effective visualizations. Bertin’s (1983) Image Theory, the only comprehensive perceptual theory in the visualization literature, will serve as the medium for the discussion. Experimental vision research grounds Image Theory in ‘first-principles’ and suggests corrections, modifications and extensions. The resulting updated version of Image Theory can serve as a guide to visualization design.”

“[Harry] Hochheiser’s TimeFinder software has a visual interface that lets users manipulate simple graphical tools to query huge databases and then lets them see the results represented on a graph. One mouse click replaces the typing of multiple parameters, reducing procedure time and the chance of introducing errors.”

“Surveying the business landscape used to be little more than a metaphor. In real life, understanding customers and competitors meant shuffling through stacks of reports and teasing out obscure patterns. Now, however, managers armed with a variety of new visualization tools really can survey a landscape.”

“There are two key problems to overcome when creating a useful information visualization. The first task is to define the visualization; which relies heavily upon brainstorming and innovation. However, the innovative display of the information, by itself, is not enough to ensure the success of the information visualization.”

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