Interactive Information Visualization: UN's release of millions of data records
Human-World Interaction, Multimedia, and Emerging Technologies
Technology-Supported Human-World Interaction: The posts on this blog reflect what I've been discovering during my mid-life return to higher-education studies. The topics in this blog include technologies that support human-world interaction on and off the desktop: ubiquitous and pervasive computing, human-computer-interaction, collaborative technologies, info-viz, usability, and interaction design. I sometimes post examples of things I've nominated for the "usability hall of shame".
Interactive Multimedia Technology: This blog focuses on topics such as games in education, serious games, interactive multimedia applications for prevention and intervention, such as health promotion, stress management, and mental health, and exploring new ways that interactive multimedia can support efficiency in learning, cognition, and communication. This includes multi-touch technology on displays of all sizes.
TechPsych: The posts on this blog are geared for psychologists, special educators, media specialists, educational technologists, teachers, speech and language therapists, and others who work in education or related fields. I look at ways that technology can be used to support important efforts in the schools, such as Universal Design for Learning, Response to Intervention, Positive Behavior Supports, and health promotion. I also touch on assistive technology, the use of technology in psychology, counseling, and related fields.
I want access to great interactive information and data visualization content, anywhere, anytime, on any type of display!
(I've re-posted this from my Technology-Supported Human-World Interaction blog.)
As
more publicly-held data becomes released, ordinary people, not just
scholars and university students, will want to get their hands on it,
especially if it is done in a user-friendly manner.
Below is something I posted on Ryan Lanham's Leading as Enabling blog, after learning about it from the EagerEyes website.
After
I uploaded this post, I started to think about how interactive
information visualization "for the people" could be played out in the
day-to-day lives of people- as they shop, visit historical settings,
attend cultural events, and so forth.
The optimization of
web-based interactive information visualization applications for use on
iPhones, PDA's, large multi-touch displays, interactive whiteboards,
public kiosks, navigation systems, and the like, is something that
deserves further work.
"Data is being set free: the United Nations have started a new website called UN Data
to share the data collected by a number of UN agencies. 55 million data
records are waiting to be explored and visualized. The search interface
is very nice and usable, but still lacks power."
Why is the release of this data important?
Every
day, people in leadership positions must make decisions based on the
accurate interpretation of data. If the data is difficult to understand
or presented in a way that might be confusing to some, the likelihood
of negative consequences is high.
Those
in leadership positions historically have had access to data, collected
with public funds, but often inaccessible to the public. Publicly
available data is often in a format that is not easy to organize,
manipulate, or understand. As a result, many people do not have a means
to fully scrutinize, or question, the decisions made by business,
health, education, and government leaders.
The Gapminder website is one example of the movement to make data accessible and easier to understand. Hans Rosling, the director of Gapminder, provides an interesting overview about this in the video, located at the bottom of this post, from his presentation at TED:
"This
software unveils the beauty of statistical time series by converting
boring numbers into enjoyable, animated and interactive graphics. The
current beta version of Trendalyzer is available since March 2006 as Gapminder World, a web-service displaying a few time series of development statistics for all countries."
"Gapminder
is a non-profit venture for development and provision of free software
that visualize human development. This is done in collaboration with
universities, UN organizations, public agencies and non-governmental
organizations."
High resolution Gapcasts and video lectures can be and found on the Gapminder website. Gapcasts are also available on YouTube.
Information and Data Visualization for the People:
"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."
"Swivel: Where Curious People Explore Data"
Related:
Breakthrough Analysis: Make Your Data Tell a Story (Seth Grimes)
-Lynn Marentette
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