Ten Best Visual Data Sites
May 7th, 2010
Visual data makes dry social stats eye-grabbing, inspiring and instantly accessible. It’s your key to high impact research posters, unforgettable handouts or intriguing cover pages…
Click on the links below and let us know your preference!
1. Visual Complexity host a library of innovative designs for visual data. One look and you’ll be hooked… http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/
2. Information Architects graft patterns of online activity onto the Tokyo metro map. How close are your favourite sites to the centre of the action? http://informationarchitects.jp/web-trend-map-4-final-beta/
3. The University of Sheffield’s Social and Spatial Inequalities Unit (SASI) uses topographical maps to create high impact images of social statistics. http://www.sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/maps/index.html
4. The intriguing “Maps of Influence” from Status Irrational reveal how close those with shelter are to homelessness http://status.irational.org/visualisation/maps/A1010_homeless.pdf.html (Commissioned by Helix Arts).
5. CultureMap London is a pilot project sponsored by Arts Council England and Audiences London. Can visual data ease communications in the arts, culture and leisure sector? http://www.culturemaplondon.org/explained_cm.htm
6. The Department of Maths and Statistics at York University, Canada gives a historical perspective on visual representations of data http://www.math.yorku.ca/SCS/Gallery/milestone/ as well as a snappy run down of “hits” and “flops” from the visual data hall of fame…
7. Gapminder World gives the global picture (literally) on socio-economic and health statistics. Try changing the values, social group, geography or choose your field of interest and see its spread across the world.
8. For a menu of data visualisations with pedigree check out Flare’s demo page: http://flare.prefuse.org/demo The home page lists high profile sites that have used their programmes.
9. Less inspiring perhaps, but simple, clear and effective, Panopticon gives us the bread and butter graphs of the statistician or researcher: http://www.panopticon.com/products/stack_graph_visual_data_analytics_tool.htm
10. Just for fun – Designing the News transforms news headlines into visual data. This link shows the headlines from one week of the UK national daily The Guardian http://www.designingthenews.com/2008/04/05/one-week-of-the-guardian-thursday/. More examples are available on the site.
Which works best for you?
Post any other sites worth checking out!
See also Vizthink from May 31st blog post – this link takes you to their visual data project showing the evolution of privacy on Facebook.
http://vizthink.com/blog/2010/05/11/visualizing-the-evolution-of-privacy-on-facebook/