http://datastori.es/ Hi Folks! We love Andy so much that we decided to keep him with us for another episode (well, actually we hope somebody will eventually pay the ransom). This time we talk about “learning visualization”, which is the perfect topic for him given his experience with his training visualization courses.
We received many requests of people who wanted to know how to learn visualization in the past. So, here we are with a more than one hour long podcast with the three of us talking about it. We just hope you’ll find the time to listen to the entire episode. If not, the breakdown below can help you chunking it into a few sessions. Have fun!
Breakdown of the episode
Introductory thoughts 00:00:00 Intro, Andy Kirk (http://visualisingdata.com) is again our guest 00:01:15 Topic: How to learn visualization 00:01:56 Multidisciplinarity 00:06:31 Reports from teaching practice 00:09:21 Theory and practice – rules vs, free exploration 00:12:24 Do you need to start with a question?
Basic skills 00:15:43 What is the basic skill set to learn? 00:16:15 Visual variables 00:18:53 Statistics and data analytics 00:19:32 Gestalt laws 00:20:32 The journalistic sense – what is an interesting angle? 00:22:19 Position is everything 00:23:38 Color is difficult
Process and tools 00:25:05 Tools 00:26:18 Data types and repertoire 00:27:15 Metaphors 00:28:52 Interaction 00:31:27 The role of design 00:32:57 How to get started?
Learning options and books 00:39:46 Everybody should have a datavis course! 00:41:32 How to learn it yourself? Books, lectures, … 00:42:39 Stephen Few: Show me the numbers 00:43:20 Andy’s first book, and mo is the cinderella of datavis 00:43:52 Readings in Information Visualization: Using vision to think 00:45:09 Edward Tufte: Visual display of quantitative information 00:46:05 Ware: Information Visualization – Perception for Design 00:47:42 Misc. 00:49:23 Our scoop! 00:52:03 Google for “information visualization lecture pdf”
The craft of visualization design 00:53:43 Now that you know everything – how to do it in practice? 00:55:01 DIY vs. template-based tools 00:57:01 Do you need to learn how to program? Yes, yep, yes, yeah. Me too. 00:58:36 Tools 01:00:17 Finding data 01:02:28 Put it out there 01:04:08 The pathetic misery that is creating data visualizations
Conclusion 01:05:52 Trying to wrap it up 01:07:13 see conference – and see+ 01:08:44 Trying to wrap it up – again!
Resources and Links
visualisingdata’s resource paper (including books) fellinlovewithdata’s data visualization beginner’s toolkit: books and tools “making a map together“, perfecting a visualization from the guardian’s data blog Ben Shneiderman’s Visual Information Seeking Mantra (overview first, …) Lakoff’s metaphors we live by (if you need metaphors to use in vis) New notable vis books: Noah Illinsky’s Designing Data Visualizations Nathan Yau’s Visualize This Tamara Munzner’s Information Visualization: Principles, Methods, and Practice (early incomplete draft) The Why Axis: vis criticism blog —
That’s all folks. Let us know how you like it and feel free to ask more questions if you have.