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BBC Dimensions at NYC MOMA!

 

As the headline says, Dimensions has made it to the new Talk To Me exhibition at the New York Museum of Modern Art, along with other work by BERG who made it.

Here is the MOMA 'Talk To Me' site with a bit more stuff

I commissioned it with BERG a few years back, when I was at BBC Vision. We were looking for was to make history/news accessible and interesting- So well done again folks at BERG - it is still excellent work.

Here's my take on it at the time.

Here's their take on it at the time.

Here's their write up of other BERG stuff at MOMA. 

 

Just because it is the pictures...

News from the Daily Mail, UK (3m 'readers')

I have just put my name to this piece on the Nieman Foundation for Journalism.

It basically says 'stop doing shit infographics'.

You can read the more reasoned argument for yourself.

I would add to their words the following:

Thinking that you can elaborate rumours with a graphic is insane. Graphics or illustrations make clear what was previously not clear. Keep any vagary textual.

The English press has spent a good century using our highly flexible and nuanced language for some of the most scurrilous and underhand speculation which stopped short of actual slander only because of deft opacity of the writing.

You can't do that with pictures. They expose you and commit you to showing. Which is possibly why the english press are so bad at using pictures. But that is another story.

Well done Juan and Alberto.

The march of time - onwards and upwards

Very decent timeline from the guardian here.

- makes real effort at resolving the far out/ deep in of time lines - id like to see it stretch each way in and each way out even more - it is a little bit on rails - id like to see the whole

- v clear iconography (although the clear colours would really illuminate the Whole from a far out view - and id like toi see more links across countries (maybe there aren't any?)

- nice metaphor of time as a zoom forward - shame the mouse controls cannot use scroll wheel - you 'go' forward but still need to move left to right at the top

overall really good - and a positive step forward

Eye Magazine article

Eye magazine asked me to pen a piece in their current information design issue. It's a beautiful issue and it's all about the important stuff. 

This issue is heralding an important time in design - the renaissance in information design. It reminds me of issue 15 (cover) that announced the (1990s) New Typography to a generation of designers.

Here is the piece  - that suggests we should teach information design to all design students.

Needless to say if you are interested in graphic design and yearn for good content, superbly presented then you need to subscribe to Eye.

Timelines, HistoryHackday2011 Notes

I got back from doing a quick turn at HistoryHackday2011 - well organised Matt.

My talk was a scratch-the-surface on history and information visualisation.

The talk was a bit last minute - not in a scramble for the plane way, but that Matt hustled me on Thursday and I did it holding a/my baby. So here are some more thought-out points.

Some of this also wraps in some thinking from BBC days in digital history projects and news so advance apols if I'm ripping off your bit of the hive-mind.

Time-lines

My mate Tom Williams was very down on them and I couldn't work out why. I was convinced along with other megalomaniacs there that it was possible to do a visualisation of all of Time, programmes, events, everything. Maybe there is , but the same old thing comes back to haunt time-lines.

"If you are in at a decent detail, then you cannot see any context

and

if you are at a decent overview level, you cannot see any decent detail."

So that was my challenge - make time-lines that solve that. (im not going to show any here - buy the Cartographies of Time book)

It's a question of where to start with all that data. Mat Webb at BERG puts it thus. and Ben Cerveny says you need a 'handle on the data". Lots of folk are pondering the way in.

It was the thing that I wrestled with in my WWII graphics - how to reconcile showing a signpost that didn't dominate the system, the wider story, yet served its function as drawing attention and labelling what the content was.

That was a particular challenge top a graphic in a magazine, but most stuff needs to stand out, get noticed, get used once,get sent on - and if there isn't that crucial in-road then your are stuffed.

So I thought about other roads to history data - and thought i'd share them.

Objects.

The BBC is doing a decent job of The History of the World in 100 objects. I'd like to see a unique URL  page for 100 million. Why not start with rare planes or stuff people naturally document, like stamps. It would catch on if it caught on somewhere just a bit. An Internet of Historical things. All the smart people we had in said all very well the BBC providing tagging tools for lots of objects but you need to start somewhere'. I repeat their words.

(Disclaimer - I am one who doesn't think the BBC should stick to just programme-web stuff. If while arsing about with early Antiques roadshow websites, they'd have made ebay, there wouldn't now be any worries about the license fee - I do believe it is as easy as that)

News

Today's news is tomorrows history. Today's news happens because of events in times past. There is a natural link. Decent meta-data and smart vis will solve this. It's not for everywhere - but on the big stories like Middle East, we are crying out for thefacst joined up and presented - both in their complexity and  The 3 minute video explainer. I'd like to see a mash-up for school lessons that shows the links between news and history. 

Family

People of a certain age go nuts for family history - they are all on Ancestry.com. But there is bound to be a good  mashup with history and family stuff.

Books

I like history books. They are the beginning of a journey for many people. Books are online , so is data. 

Those are the things I would have said if my heavy baby wasn't breaking my left arm. Well done Matt. 

 

 

Tower Graphics - part two

The post on The Rise of Tower Graphics was very popular.

There were plenty of comments too - and below are some of the points raised and some responses. (commenters' names not linked but you can see them on the post)

Evolution of form

A couple of commenters mentioned that these are shaped as long scrolling assets because they are built for blogs. This makes a lot of sense as blogs are one of the most continually vertical reading experiences we have and why wouldn't graphics constructed for these fit the frame so well? I suspect that is why they are so sectioned in their construction - there is no point giving them a unifying composition as they will never be experienced in one shot like a magazine spread.

Structure

The above points reminded me of a talk I once saw that explored Radial and Sequential newspaper graphics. Radial graphics contain a large central image with auxiliary information around the edges. These graphics don't integrate with the rest of the content so well but make the initial sell of the subject very well. A big iconic subject chosen as the orientating object not only makes a sell, but provides an accessible start point for the average reader.

Sequential graphics integrate elements more within the linear path of the text flow and as a result cause more text to be read. One could argue they satisfy the need for multi-modality - that of text doing its own job well, diagrams their job well - each in their place doing what they are good at.

(more on the sequential/radial stuff here)

Virality and 'Cheating'

One commenter said "apparently lots of these info-graphics are just thrown together by dodgy organisations to try and get traffic from Reddit, Digg,"

The people doing this realise that lots of people like information graphics and so they use them as marketing to get people to look at them, rate them favourably, encouraging click-throughs to sites of dubious worth. This industrialised production would go someway to explaining why there are so many of these about at the moment.

If they are made by graphic designers with no information design experience, that would also explain why they have the visual trappings of information graphics, but on further examination are just montages of informational elements. It also explains why the content is so dull for many of them too.

Digg/Reddit original point made here - and here

Video

There was quite a lot of debate on what video was good and not good at.I'll cover that in another post.

I certainly agree that the reader is in control of the speed at which they read tower graphics - but then on the flip-side, a well organised video can make the information seamlessly digestible.

It seems to be a perennial rally to arms amongst digital people - that of 'allowing people to interact and understand at their own pace'. I agree with the sentiment but the reality is often that the mechanics of this slowed or stepped interaction often create a barrier (such as the 'press next' function/ too many sliders, radio buttons on so many web graphics) - of course what i would like to see is two versions: a well told video story - and a fully interactive, explorable version.

The relevant facts, told in the relevant way for specific audiences.

 

 

The Rise of The Tower Graphic

You will need to scroll quite  a bit in this post. (when the page has finally loaded)

 

Sorry about that - but at least it illustrated nicely what I mean by a Tower Graphic.

I've just had a chat with the excellent Tom Pearson.  He is a software engineer at BBC News and when he mentioned what he called 'Tumblr Graphics', I was reminded of these massive things I've been seeing online.

You will have seen them in many blogs, everywhere in fact. Phil Gyford rightly lampooned the majority of them here.

Tom mentioned that they are 'Tumblr' in style - i like that phrase  - they certainly acknowledge the scroll of a screen. (which to me must be better than the next, next, next, of many 'paginated' graphics.) I thought I'd call them 'tower' as that may speak to the megalomaniacal glee with which many seem to have been executed.

 
They are bloody everywhere.

Typically taking up several screen-depths, they are rarely structured, with the exception of a unifying subject and background colour and typically stylish 'style-guide'.

But-it cannot be all bad can it?  If the purpose of structure is to direct to content, the user already knows that to scroll will enable that, so why shouldn't the designer concentrate on the information- elements on this expansive canvas, rather than mangling them through some clever trope?

Every time I try to hate these, I imagine people who are just interested in the facts finding them easy to use. (albeit hard to search and re-size etc etc).

This immediate gratification is something quite satisfying. Tom mentioned it is echoed in the production of flash movies which bake in all  their content - the baking-in helping their sendability and virality. Often these tower graphics comment on popular ideas, again, making them sendable social currency. Other baked in stuff, going against the open, searchable text principles are the explosion of informative videos like here

Dan Hill writes that Video is rapidly becoming the pre-eminent mode for communication of ideas (just as everyday photography is increasingly becoming video too).

Anyone in telly may say that this is not so new - but I think that for those at the cutting edge of say, design (like dan), to be using good old fashioned video says something about a want for universal understanding (go on , read dans post, it features some cracking work)

These tower graphics and videos are going against themassive complexity of other modern data-vis too.  They are rejecting the pull of making expert interfaces for experts and awards panels, leaving the average user blank. I like that there are some new simple forms - like these old, archetypal USA Today graphics. (but will I ever love them? probably not - but I 'quite like' baked beans - I don't need to love them)

I am not sure of their intention - I am deeply suspicious of many designer's motives in using the motifs of information design to add backbone to their flimsy scribbles. But some of these are quite good. Lots of shite TV doesn't make Mad Men unwatchable.

*Wait a minute* I hear myself say, we did one for 9/11 - showing who was on which floor. I think it is still conceptually sound but I would say that.

More interesting is that the NYT, and BBC andElpais are now using large single page graphics online - using the whole page - rather than paginating. Nice and simple - seems good. But there may be a flip side:

I think the use of these, first published in the paper and/or videos (maybe ripped from any TV video news graphics) will push back on the need for those 'web-skills' - of useful visualising and interaction design skills, that have been a little squandered in ornate visualisations. (With many media outlets looking to save costs, the online design people had better start thinking of their ROI. News sites have never used these full page graphics much before and this is new.)

From El Pais:

 

From NYT

 

So - much as there is a lot to dislike, they shine a light on the place I am most interested in these days - how you get most people to understand something. Not your design pals, not awards juries but normal people.

These are brutish and unsophisticated and I am sure that the public deserves better, but they have they have the balls to gatecrash the haughty party of modern information visualisation - and that is good.

I'm starting a new job soon - more in another post - and I think I'll start blogging more - there is an increasing amount happening in information design.

What is Information? "That is Information"

 

This is a nice video on "that is information" you'll have to watch it for the answer.

Their other videos are here.
Trillions - on computing
Architecture - 'architecture in its broadest sense'
( videos done by maya)

Thus was seen on club construct - much other good stuff there.

Airplane Cutaways

 

I found this Italian site with tonnes of cutaways the other day. 

Cutaways seem a popular search term.

There are other cutaways (tanks, submarines) but it is mostly planes.

Back to work.

The Trouble with Information Graphics 1

I recently bought a copy of In/Visible: Graphic Data Revealed.

It's quite good, especially for the NYT-philes out there.

The best thing was this quote - towards the end of the book, which comes as a bit of a shock after the general celebration of visual reasoning.

The book details a panel discussion. The chairperson says "a good friend of mine told me ... a picture's worth a thousand words but it takes words to say that".

I thought that was an excellent quote.

There is a stack of interest (about time) in what visual information can do. Lots of people are getting very excited. Coffee table books are even coming out. The game is afoot.

But.

There is a challenge for information designers to know when to let prose communicate.

It is a challenge to designers to write better (or write).

It is a challenge to all designers to integrate with all parts of their business better - and not just do the 'pictures'.

Or - to do the pictures but to realise that other modes of communication are as important and indeed complimentary to what they are doing.

In print media, where no sound is available, visual articulation of data can sell a complex idea that may be secreted in the text, retrievable only after a satisfying read.

At a conference last year, I chatted to Hans Rosling and when I asked about causation and correlation in information visualisation, he got happily irate. He said "graphics and data-vis will show you the overview - they will show you where to investigate further - but they will not do all the work required of understanding a subject".

Designers sometimes lock themselves away from the client - especially in the bustle of editorial set-ups where draughtsmanship requires some quiet. But don't do it. The readers need a multimodal way of understanding the story.

Research into Information graphics we did at BBC News after 9/11 indicated that the simple graphics were popular. The ones that had a map to show where. A photo for some colour and actuality. A basic diagram to show detail of what had happened. These were much more effective that the map-photo-diagram-3d hybrids that tried too hard but couldn't do any of the jobs required.

So back to text. 

Should designers understand their place in a predominantly text based culture? 

Should we be the best behaved people at that party if we want to keep getting invited? 

Or should we listen to those who say rock the boat and rebel?

I'd say if you do want to shout from the barricades, try using some words and not just pictures.