{"id":1091,"date":"2010-04-12T07:00:28","date_gmt":"2010-04-12T15:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.formtek.com\/blog\/?p=1091"},"modified":"2010-04-12T07:00:28","modified_gmt":"2010-04-12T15:00:28","slug":"data-making-sense-of-it-with-infographics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/data-making-sense-of-it-with-infographics\/","title":{"rendered":"Data: Making sense of it with Infographics"},"content":{"rendered":"

USA Today was a pioneer in the trend towards creating a more graphic presentation of news data.\u00a0 The newspaper sensed early on that people are often more quick at understanding complex news and facts when data is presented graphically.\u00a0 USA Today’s style is slowly being adopted by other papers, like the New York Times and, to some extent, even the Wall Street Journal.
\nData visualization used as a tool for communicating information is being called Infographics<\/em>.\u00a0 And it is becoming ever more popular.<\/p>\n

Kim Baer, author of the Information Design Workbook<\/em> wrote <\/a>that “with all this information flying at us, we\u2019re craving some guidance to help us sort through it. Hence the preponderance of blogs, news aggregators, content-specific RSS feeds, and an even greater need for information graphics and charts to help visually distill information.”<\/p>\n

A well-done infographic can be powerful and change opinions almost instantly.\u00a0 That’s what a frustrated Barack Obama is hoping.\u00a0 He recently enlisted <\/a>infographics guru Edward Tufte to help “track and explain $787 billion used in recovery stimulus funds.”<\/p>\n

Tools are making it ever easier for people to interactively visualize their data.\u00a0 There are now a number of web sites that encourage their users to actively participate.\u00a0 These sites provide a method for people to upload their data and also the tools to graphically interact with that data.<\/p>\n

Some of the sites include:
\nPublic Data Explorer<\/a> — Google’s interactive visualization of some of the most searched-for data sets.<\/p>\n

Many Eyes<\/a> — IBM’s data visualization site lets you upload, graph and share data sets.<\/p>\n

Swivel<\/a> — Data visualization site that lets you upload, graph and share data.<\/p>\n

Tableau Public <\/a>— Client software to visualize data and then publish to the web.<\/p>\n

Geocommons<\/a> — FortiusOne’s visualization of geodata.\u00a0 Create shareable maps.<\/p>\n