How to Entertain audiences using data led content - Trend Report Spring 2015

Volume 1 of 4 – Spring 2015
Spotlight: Entertain

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If you have news that you feel is
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Production team:
Maria Djaleva, Tamara Franklin, Miriam Quick, Aaron Sylvester, Ben Willers
Contributions:
Carl Alchin, David Bihanic, Alberto Cairo, Andy Kirk, Giorgia Lupi, Stefanie Posavec
Special thanks:
Christopher Twigg
Richard Silvester
Editor
Welcome back! In last years report you’ll remember we talked about
how our relatively small industry is starting to take shape, one year on,
the steady forward march in development and structure of this report
is hopefully testiment to it’s maturity. In observation many are starting
to see:-
Collaboration is key, the connection alongside tech and physical is
fuelling innovation and pushing data viz towards real life context,
(view Jawbone case study) and welcome a handful of inspiring talent
as can be seen in the community trends section.
Digital content shelf life is becoming radicalised, 8am’s news is no longer
8pm’s: so how can organisations sustain their audiences attention
and where does data visualization have a part to play in this?
Well, its by no means the definitive answer but a well structured,
sustained content calendar approach serves as a valuable advantage.
We have a need to satisfy our audiences for different purposes and
reflective moods, and judging by Pew Research’s data, the abundance
of content isn’t creating information overload just yet (let’s re-
evaluate that in 2016!). In this seasons trend report the infogr8 team
focus on how data led content can ‘Entertain’.
We hope you find the read as entertaining and as fascinating as we
did when putting it together. So without further ado, lets get into
some Datatainment!
Editor’s note
Editor’s Note

Awareness Purchase
Entertain
Inspire
Convince
Educate
EmotionalRational
Bitesize
Maps/
way-finding
Dashboard
Quiz
Real time assets
Wall mural/
ex. stand
Presentation
Data art
Visual story
Interfaces
ECRM
Static Interactive Video
Data analysis
Reports &
White Papers
Installation
Educational
workshop
Creative
workshop
Tech spec.
Sales col.
Survey
Score cards
Print magazine
Data driven
blog/microsite
Data bites
Advertising/
media
Exp
lore
Exh
ibit
Explain
Forms &
utilities
Feature
pages
Tools
Visualisation
Explainer
animation
We start with this matrix we
compiled having been inspired
by Dave Chaffeys Smartinsights
content matrix. Although not
perscriptive by any means, its
designed to aid organisations
serious about using data led
content to plot out opportunities
and evaluate the general spread
of activity.
Note: A more fluid interactive version is on
its way showing the general trail of content
types.
Frequency:
Frequent
Regular
Considered
Data led content matrix

In this issue the main spotlight is
on Entertain.
[en-ter-teyn]
Provide (someone) with amusement or
enjoyment.
Data led visual content with the purpose
of providing an entertaining and enjoyable
experience, whilst accurately representing
the facts.
Click on the hexagons to head
over to a range of best case
examples produced through the
talented and fast growing data
viz community.
*Whilst the majority of examples fit within
the entertain quartile, there are a number of
overlaps, due to the fluid nature of this matrix.
Awareness Purchase
Entertain
Inspire
Convince
Educate
EmotionalRational
Bitesize
Maps/
way-finding
Dashboard
Quiz
Real time assets
Wall mural/
ex. stand
Presentation
Data art
Visual story
Interfaces
ECRM
Static Interactive Video
Data analysis
Reports &
White Papers
Installation
Educational
workshop
Creative
workshop
Tech spec.
Sales col.
Survey
Score cards
Print magazine
Data driven
blog/microsite
Data bites
Advertising/
media
Exp
lore
Exh
ibit
Explain
Forms &
utilities
Feature
pages
Tools
Visualisation
Explainer
animation
Data led content matrix

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– Question 1
How has data visualisation evolved since you’ve started working
in this area, and how has this affected your practice over time?
– Question 2
What predictions do you have, and what trends should we look
out for concerning design and data visualisation in 2015?
Community Trends
What’s hot this year
Community
Trends

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Q1I’ve found that due to the glut of digital posters (ie not proper information
graphics) flooding the internet, information graphics seem less impactful
than they did a few years ago when I started working in this field. As a designer, I’ve
found the standard ‘column infographic’ quite restrictive as a space to innovate and
extend myself creatively as a designer, so I’ve explored working with data both in a
more illustrative way (using data as a design material) as well as have explored ways
of communicating data through physical installations and tactile objects. Finally,
due to the restrictive nature of static infographics I tend to be more interested in
interactive data visualisation projects these days.
Q2Information graphics and data visualisations have often been siloed
off from the rest of communication design. However, it seems that they
are slowly being brought back into communication design as just one way of
communicating information, and I think this is great! Now that data visualisation
is normal for designers, they are able to think about data communication in the
same open-ended, creative way as they would any other design problem. I’m also
hoping we see more explorations into ‘information experience’ that extend off of
the screen into the physical world.
Q1I first came across data visualisation when trying to make ‘traditional’
business information charts more user friendly and interesting. The
data was all about operational performance of a leading insurer, so how could
we turn a standard set of Key Performance Indicators in to something that the
management team could just look at to fully understand what needed to be
changed? Enter data visualisation tools that have made ‘mass production’
of effective visualisation possible. I’m a history student with little computing
background, yet the most modern tools have allowed me to specialise in a field
without having huge amounts of ‘coding’ experience.
Q2More democratisation of data. As tools become easier to use, easier to
join disparate sets of data and more people understanding how data can
help them, you will get a rise in the use of data for all aspects of life from fitbits
to banking. Also, I hope to see more people becoming ‘fanalysts’ so they can use
data to analyse what they are interested in and this will develop the visualisation
field even further with new ideas and perspectives.
Community Trends
Stefanie Posavec Carl Alchin
Stefanie Posavec works as a designer with a focus on data-related design,
with work ranging from data visualization and information design to
commissioned data art for a variety of clients. This work has been exhibited
internationally at major galleries including at the Museum of Modern Art (New
York), Centro Cultural Banco Do Brasil (Rio de Janeiro), the Victoria & Albert
Museum, and Somerset House (London).
http://www.stefanieposavec.co.uk
Now that data visualisation is normal for designers,
they are able to think about data communication in
the same open-ended, creative way as they would
any other design problem.
Community
Trends
The most modern tools have allowed me to
specialise in a field without having huge amounts
of ‘coding’ experience.
Carl Alchin is a Tableau Consultant for The Information Lab introducing
the product, teaching and solving challenges for their clients. His blog
datajedininja.blogspot.co.uk focuses on data visualisation techniques usually
in relation to basketball analysis.
http://datajedi.ninja

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Alberto Cairo
The main trend I believe is that this type of work is becoming more and more
popular, and I see that in my own classes at the University of Miami. The students
that I had in 2012 were mostly students of journalism, but nowadays my classes are
filled with scientists, business types, people from public administration, etc. All of
them wanting to learn how to display data correctly and how to use visualisation
for effective communication.
So the popularisation of visualisation is certainly a reality that we are dealing with
nowadays. More and more people are becoming interested in data visualisation
both for exploring data for their own purposes such as research, but also how
to use visualisation to communicate either with their peers or with the general
public, which is another worthy goal. And I believe that it’s wonderful that this is
happening because there is so much to be done, so much to be taught, so much
collaboration with people from so many different backgrounds. I believe that it’s a
wonderful time to be in visualisation.
At the same time another trend that we have experienced in the past 5 or 6 years
is the rise of free tools, some of which are open source that are increasing easy to
use for visualisation work. Things like JavaScript libraries, Highcharts and Tableau
Public and many others are wonderful and very sophisticated. When I started doing
infographics back in the late 1990s, tools were generally difficult to use and very
expensive, and it took a lot of time to learn how to use them. Today we have many
tools that allow us to create effective visualisations very rapidly.
I believe as more people are creating visualisations nowadays, this is leading to
a challenging future as we see pieces that don’t respect certain rules of visual
presentation of information. I know that many visualisation designers out there are
against speaking about rules, but I believe that they are wrong. I believe there are rules
in visualisation design. It is true that these rules are very flexible and generic, but there
are certain rules of visualisation design in the same way that there are rules in graphic
design. They are very flexible but they still exist and we should keep teaching them.
Today many famous visualisation designers are all about creativity, and I am
completely onboard with that. I love creative visualisations and the work of Moritz
Stefaner, Giougia Lupi from Accurat, and Periscopic in Portland, but I also believe
that kind of work can only be done well when people who try to create that type of
work have understood the basic rules of visualisation design.
For example, Moritz Stefaner has been working for many years, and he understands
intuitively the rules of visualisation and he is able to bend or even to break those
rules when it is appropriate. The danger nowadays is that we are selling this idea of
complete creative freedom to newcomers. Before you break the rules you need to
understand what the rules mean and how to apply them really well.
Creativity is certainly a value that we should pursue, because without creativity we
would never have developed new graphic forms, new forms of expression, new
ways of communicating data, etc. But that can only be done after people have
embraced traditional visualisation design, learning from Edward Tufte, Stephen
Few and others who have been writing about “rules” of visualisation design.
Cognitive psychology has shown that we do know that the brain processes
visual information, and this can somehow help us decide how to create better
visualisations. Again, these rules can be extremely flexible and extremely generic but
they are still there and they need to be studied and learned.
It is a desire of mine that there will be more recognition to this traditional
approach to visualisation from famous people who practice visualisation. Again, I
believe they do wonderful work, but in some cases the way in which they express
themselves can be misleading for those who are beginning there careers, leading
them to believe that rules don’t exist or that rules don’t need to be learned and that
it’s all about self expression and creating cool stuff. However it’s not that. It’s about
communicating effectively and clearly with the public. That should be the end goal
of visualisation, to help people conduct better lives by providing them with good
information, presented in a clear and engaging manner.
Alberto Cairo teaches visualization and infographics at the University of Miami.
He’s also director of the visualization program at UM’s Center for Computational
Science. He’s the author of “The Functional Art: An Introduction to Information
Graphics and Visualization” and will publish “The Truthful Art: Data, Charts, and
Maps for Communication” in March 2016.
Twitter: @albertocairo
There are certain rules of visualisation design in the
same way that there are rules in graphic design.
They are very flexible but they still exist and we
should keep teaching them.
Community
Trends
Listen to Alberto’s full audio response here

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In my mind those two questions are very connected. On one hand, in the past
years, we’ve seen the proliferation of experiments and explorations within the fields
of data visualisation, data art, and information design.
The most innovative and artsy pieces have bought visibility to the field of data
visualisation (through publications and visual data journalism, through awards
and competitions that recognised the level of innovation of those visuals); those
experiments helped establishing some best practices, helped pushing forward the
standards, they helped and still help us understand what people like and what
they don’t, what they understand and what is too much; they helped establish
a community and a very active debate, and not least they increased the “data
literacy” or “data visualisation literacy” a lot.
In parallel, the evolution of the technologies and the release of lots of tools such as
Tableau, CartoDB, Raw and many others, now allow practically everybody to create
basic and standards visualisations.
This is paradoxically a very interesting moment for data visualisation designers, in
my opinion.
For example at Accurat we started very focused on experimenting visually,
building “case studies” of highly customised visual models to represent data in
different contexts and through different variables, exploring and working a lot with
journalists and, in the business sector, working mostly with the communication
and marketing departments of companies; we built our portfolio around highly
customised and dense visual narratives with data, and we worked primarily on
pieces whose goal was to tell a specific story to a wide and generic audience.
More and more now we’re instead collaborating with clients in very different
industries, and most of on different business functions: our work is used in finance,
human resources, I.T., customer relations, product development… More and more
of our clients (and potential clients!) approach us with a need for visualisation-
based data discovery tools, more than specific visualisations of a dataset they have
for communication purposes. Even if we still work on what is called “storytelling”
we are now also applying our methodology to the support of decision making
within the process of organisations, definitely a more strategic role.
This is very stimulating to me and for sure even in these new kind of collaborations
we rely very much on highly customised visuals and visual experimentations.
The market and our role as data visualisation designer is changing for sure,
data visualisation has gone mainstream but there is still room for a lot of
experimentations.
I think it also changes a lot depending whether you are a individual designer or a
company: at Accurat we feel it is a challenge for us to keep on addressing more and
more strategic needs and trying to scale our business to have more impact within
organisations; but also keeping a uniqueness and this sort of signature that we had
when we were a smaller group of individuals.
Also, maybe, visualisation is coming back to where it was originally used for: charts
for understanding numbers in a visual way have always existed; now we have
more technologies, more possibilities and we can definitely benefit from the visual
experimentations that have been going on!
Another promising directions that I like to envision, is trying to ‘humanise’ data-
driven interactive narratives: simplifying the interactions, using data to connect
people, and exploring the power of a beautiful interactive experience to trigger
people to use and be part of a digital application.
Community Trends
Data visualisation has gone mainstream but there
is still room for a lot of experimentation.
Giorgia Lupi
Giorgia Lupi is an information designer. Her work in information visualization
frequently crosses the divide between digital and print, exploring visual models
and metaphors to represent dense and rich data-driven stories. She is co-
founder and design director at Accurat, an information design agency based in
Milan and New York.
http://www.giorgialupi.net
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Q1My first concerns, dating back to 1995, were concentrated on design
of original lexicographic systems allowing at that time to graphically
transpose/translate/transcribe diverse alphabets, different words, terms and
concepts as well as some of their meanings (in reference, for instance, to
earlier proprietary expert-systems which represented all lexical components
into graphical items). Later, I worked on several GUI projects dealing with
representation-visualisation of specific documentary information (in connection
with some coherent corpus of documents); one of them entitled “Crystal hy-
map” adapts a 3D ‘hypermedia’ structure – as we called it in those days – to
support a large network of links. It relies on a connectionist system capable of
handling numerous data units where information is organized in directories and
indexed by ‘geosemantic’ analysis. In 2007, I received my PhD degree in Design
from the University of Paris I Pantheon-Sorbonne. The focus of my research was
to examine carefully and in depth (on both theoretical and practical levels) the
various aesthetic implications of the conceptual schemes and formal patterns that
underlie the ‘non-conventional’ data visualisation techniques (rather than those
already known and used).
In some ways the direction of my practice-based research has evolved unceasingly
since 1996; it followed the numerous changes that occurred in this field. Everything
has changed in just 15 years time. The huge piles of data processed today have
nothing in common with what we experienced in the past. In that bygone age,
we were looking for new graphical depictions of mid-size databases (referring to
specific pools of data). Now, we endeavour to create original visual languages and
vocabularies making the massive data more visible and comprehensible for the
public — I am talking here about highly heterogeneous data (ad hoc) that are also
widely distributed, and exceedingly complex; Thus one of the main challenges is to
give big data a meaningful visual dimension, to shape such datasets so that it could
be read/perceived/understood by anyone (towards new ways to provide access
to and facilitating understanding of large data sets). Fortunately, the design and
development tools (as well as the visualisation techniques) have improved; they
have become very powerful and straightforward to handle.
Another point concerns the perceptual-cognitive gain of data visualisation. Many
were skeptical, and frankly doubted that data visualisation could deliver valuable
assistance to users dealing with information (despite the conclusive results of
research conducted by Stuart K. Card, Jock Mackinlay, Ben Shneiderman, John
Stasko and others). Today, everyone, or nearly everyone, is sure of that. What
matters nowadays is not the “why to”, but mostly the “how to” (in order to address
the increasing mass of data now available, we have to identify new creative paths
– it is certain that technological advances alone will not completely resolve the
problem: the data abounds).
Q2From my point of view, one of the big challenges for data designers will
be to seek/find creative tracks which enable people to design their own
data presentations, to give them user-friendly toolkits to manage and visualise
public data as well as their own personal datasets (quantified self movement).
What counts today is not to define visual languages that fit specific visualisation
requests (semiosis) but rather to develop metalanguages (physis) that permit to
combine/mix the visual attributes in accordance with the qualities of data which
is processed, and also in line with the different needs/practices and situations
of use. As the world changes (different states), the data collected is updated
accordingly; Individuals, too, change continuously (different activities/tasks/
needs, but also different moods, different states of being and so on). That’s
the reason why the infographics and visualisations portraying the world (or,
alternatively, the individual personalities of the people) through data have to
be constantly reconsidered and refocused. It is up to data designers to think,
and imagine the ways in which we could build, from the data at our disposal,
our own images, our own stories. This implies the sharing of tools, of course (as
I mentioned earlier), but more broadly the sharing of culture, experience and
know how. I’m sure that the New Year that is beginning will be full of this kind of
projects/initiatives that are, I believe, I hope, I wish, emerging.
Community Trends
David Bihanic
Designer and founder of the FXDESIGNSTUDIO digital design agency, and also
Associate Professor at the University of Valenciennes and Hainaut-Cambresis
(UVHC, FRANCE), David Bihanic is of the rising generation of design professionals
for whom originality refers specifically to their (learning and professional)
transversal path. He is presently Head of the Master’s degree in Digital Design of
the UHVC and Vice-Director of the laboratory CALHISTE (EA 4343).
http://www.davidbihanic.com
One of the main challenges is to give big data
a meaningful visual dimension, to shape such
datasets so that it could be read/perceived/
understood by anyone.
Community
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Q1I think the main observations would be the steady and growing penetration
of visualisation as a discipline into the mainstream consciousness.
I discovered the field in 2007 when it was very much a fringe activity, largely
dominated in terms of ‘entry point into the field’ by the likes of Edward Tufte and
Stephen Few. I started working in this area in a part time capacity in 2010, then
more permanently in 2011. Around this time you could really sense a greater
and broader appreciation amongst the possible client base of what visualisation
was, why it was important and where help existed. Nowadays people are more
immediately aware of data visualisation and infographic. It is increasingly part
of their job duties, and it seems to be seen as a fun prospect - something many
people are willing to embrace.
Q2The rapid growth of the field in this last 5 years has led to increased use
of different techniques for portraying data: methods like slope graphs,
sankey diagrams, tree maps, scatter plots, even connected scatter plots are
becoming so common. The world of newspapers and journalism in particular is on
the front line here. Graphics editors are displaying increasing confidence to try out
new - and correct - approaches to their data portrayals. Linked to this however, I
think there will be increasing focus towards the reader (user, audience, consumer,
how ever we wish to label them). Visualisation literacy is hugely on my radar due
to my involvement in a research project on this subject but even beyond that I
feel there is greater appreciation of the gap that exists between the wonderful
advancements made by creators of visualisations and the capability/confidence of
the readers to make sense of these very different - non entry-level - visual devices.
I feel we need to preserve the confidence of creators to try different approaches
for audiences but need to equip these audiences with even more assistance than
we are doing to help them get the most out what they’re consuming.
Community Trends
Andy Kirk
Andy Kirk is a data visualisation specialist, freelance design consultant,
trainer, blog editor, researcher & author. He is also a visiting lecturer at
Maryland Institute College of Art.
http://www.visualisingdata.com
I feel there is greater appreciation of the gap that
exists between the wonderful advancements made
by creators of visualisations and the capability/
confidence of the readers to make sense of these
very different - non entry-level - visual devices.
Community
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A World of Belonging
UP Data Snapshots
Datagrams
#SpeakBeautiful
Outdo You
Model S Auto Pilot
Let it fly
Left Behind
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A World of Belonging
– Airbnb –
It has often been commented that information technology has helped make
the world feel smaller. Of course Airbnb are keen for us to explore as much
of it as possible, and their #OneLessStranger campaign is intended to help
potential travellers feel that they will be made to feel welcome in their new
surroundings, wherever they decide to travel.
A World of Belonging, their new online interactive globe, is the next step
they have taken to help make strange and foreign lands feel more friendly
and inviting. The charming illustrations alone are reason enough to traverse
every inch of this virtual landscape, however we may also uncover a
number of Airbnb related stats along the way and view what is apparently
real-time traveling and checking-in data from their users. Tweets using the
OneLessStranger hashtag have also been woven into the mix, helping to
expand the awareness of this campaign and show where on Earth Airbnb
users are sharing acts of kindness to make their guests feel more at home.
As much as we adore the the artistic style and soothing tones, we can’t help
but feel a little curious about the ‘real-time’ aspect of the data that is on
display, and it’s unfortunate that there does not appear to be any new stats
added since the new year. However we are hopeful that more will continue
to be integrated soon so that we all have reason to visit this beautiful piece
again and again.
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Datagrams
– IBM –
We all love to watch a good game of Tennis, but in this fast-paced internet
age who really has the time? Luckily IBM together with Ogilvy & Mather
and Buck were at hand to serve up some colourful bite-sized videos via
Instagram. This was to help promote their presence and summarise the
matches played at the US Open, and subsequently Roland Garros and
Wimbledon in 2014. Each Datagram visualised key stats from the games on
court, and could be published within a minute of the set ending. The data
bites certainly appear to have stroke a chord with tennis fans, generating
more than 30,000 likes and close to one million impressions on an account
that didn’t exist before the start of the tournament.
We applaud the creative thinking, and a new approach to real-time marketing,
however the speed at which the information is delivered is sometimes a
little overwhelming, requiring us to watch several cycles to fully grasp what
is being shown. It’s difficult to pick faults at this campaign especially with
the time constraints of the platform, however we would be interested to
see what more could be done if they had just a few more seconds available
to play with.
We haven’t seen anything quite like this before, or repeated in the months
since, but hopefully we will see similar examples in the near future. Maybe
they turn their attention to the game of cricket next, which could help
make the sport even remotely tolerable to follow. Sorry @BeefyBotham!
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Outdo You
– Nike –
In this day and age, if your brand isn’t listening to its customers and
embracing data available on your customers what are you doing with
your time? If you are not using data to your advantage, guess what, your
competitors probably will be. Giving you a first-class ticket to join the
queue behind Woolworths, HMV and Blockbuster. Sports brand Nike had
actively been using data in a motivational way before the Wearable data
trend became popular, and Nike moved more into tech. Nike has now
taken an unprecedented sidestep from their usual motivational sports star
commercials, insert ‘life coach voice over’ and onto launching their Outdo
You campaign by AKQA USA.
It’s no secret we are all fans, of French illustrator McBess in the office and
a collaboration between McBess and Nike was sure to create something
special. Using data from the Nike+ member community, the brand teamed
up with McBess to develop and send out 100,000 personalised animations
through email. These animations were sent to their top performing athletes
in each location. Based on city, climate and sporting activity data, Nike was
able to produce bespoke short videos. Each of the unique videos sent to
each user consisted of tracked location, weather and movement data. Nike
created supplementary videos, targeted four key cities and North America
as a whole to reward these high achieving areas.
Those lucky runners, joggers, gym bunnies who achieved a personalised
video, are no doubt even more motivated than ever before to smash
their goals for 2015. However, how do those people who miss their goals
by a day, a few hours or just give up on a regular basis stay motivated?
Undeniably this is a challenge! But even insight as little as how we compare
amongst our town, age group / in our area or simply country would give
us a small level of insight and relevant knowledge. Knowledge that would
ultimately motivate one to push on and hopefully break targets in 2015.
In a similar style, Google’s Year in Search campaign offers users a recap
video of the important moments and stories that happened in 2014,
through the lens of search. Additionally, Google offers their data on top
searches for the year for users to explore. Nike’s campaign highlighted by
Adverblog and Digital media author and entrepreneur @Jaybaer hit 100+
tweets within minutes of sharing the campaign.
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Let it fly
– Virgin –
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Virgin Atlantic’s ‘Let it fly’ campaign launched early February with one of
the most inspiring holiday ads we’ve seen for a while. On a daily basis, we
are all subjected to an onslaught of adverts, so it was a masterstroke that
this campaign impacted upon the team. So much so, the first thing we did
was re-visit the ‘Let it fly’ video online. Virgin remains true to their brand
values, with its inspiring and entrepreneurial go-getting creative. This is all
part of a larger campaign created by Adam&EveDDB and highlighted by
Fast Company, which includes an interactive online destination enabling
users to follow their goals and aspirations by recommending hypothetical
travel destinations.
Virgins approach is what we would come to expect for a typical marketing
campaign, however, as a self-confessed nomad, this interactive destination
feels like the perfect asset to support the commercial. When you input your
details on what you pack for your holiday, this clever tool will guess the
most suitable destination based on your holiday packing preferences and
highlights the must see locations and experiences.
Now for those of us with busy lives, to have your next holiday options
curated for you this feels like a great starting point for anyone. You can
virtually explore destinations including curated film clips, live tweets and
images from local attractions. This leaves you feeling only a stones throw
away from the country, and ready to book a flight. We assume Virgin would
agree, millennials aren’t their target audience. This interactive aligns with
the trend sparked by this generation of shunning travel agents and using
online tools to aid their holiday destination decisions.
Whilst Virgin appear to be at the early stages with this tool, we admire the
route they are taking. The addition of some real-time data like weather
forecasts and photo shares, by those in the location, would be a truly
added benefit and encourage many cursors to slide nearer to the book
holiday button.

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UP Data Snapshots
– Jawbone –
In the continuous quest to improve ourselves, many have evolved to use
advanced methods and techniques. Eating well, exercising often, getting
enough sleep is not left to the science anymore as we thrive to learn and
understand how we can use science and benefit from it. Lately, we have
stretched this quest even further thanks to wearables, hearables and
nearables. The quantified self has become a new movement and data is
leading the way.
According to LifeQ’s founder Riaan Conradie, the future of wearable tech
isn’t about the devices, it’s about analysing the data they collect. It is about
their fundamental usefulness, giving the user enough info to not just self-
track but to be able to make improvements and change behaviour.
Up steps the Jawbone UP24 who are moving in this direction by recently
introducing Smart Coach, a new feature that gives suggestions on reaching
your goal based on data inputs. For example, if your goal is 10k steps and
you are at 9.3k, Smart Coach will suggest a 5 minute walk to power up
your stepping. Or if you are feeling downbeat, it gives tips on how you can
improve your mood by taking a quick siesta. This is how data is transformed
to put the user in control of it. Jawbone can even go further by integrating
travelling apps like Citymapper and Google Maps. This way data is not
just used to inform, but to suggest actions triggered by the results from its
analysis. Users want to know how their behaviour has impacted their goals
and this is a strong step for the future of wearables, analysing the data and
putting the user at the heart of it.
The latest report from trendwatching.com, explores these opportunities
even further, on how brands can use wearable tech to analyse human
behaviour and get closer to their audience by rewarding lifestyle changes.
Through a myriad of innovative campaigns from leading brands the report
tells a story of the ever changing environment of the digital age. The sky is
the limit. Exciting times are upon us!
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#SpeakBeautiful
– Dove and Twitter –
Social media can make or break a trend. Human curiosity knows no
boundaries thanks to the limitless connections we have created. We are
drawn to controversial discussions like moths to a flame. Yes, we are talking
about #TheDress, the latest discussion that divided our planet into two sets
of colours. Besides the flames, these conversations are generating all sorts
of data. Likes, shares, tweets, visitors, clicks, memes created, the list goes
on… We get it, it’s all fun and games, but how much positive impact can we
ignite from being involved in the viral wave and how can we use this data to
actually do good?
In 2014 Dove noted that women sent over 5 million negative tweets about
body image and beauty in 2014. Motivated by such grandiose negativity,
Dove and Twitter teamed up on a single mission: to start a positive trend
among women who spoke negatively about their bodies. How did they do
it? Data collection. Using Twitter’s data Dove identified hateful tweets sent
by women about beauty and body image. When a negative tweet is posted,
Dove sends a non-automated response to the person, which includes advice
to encourage positive thinking. Alongside the respond, they visualised the
data collection off the back of the tweets and created powerful gifographics..
What we would have loved to see though, is the impact of the campaign
visualised, how hateful words were turned into beautiful ones and how this
changes behaviours among women online. The campaign is still rolling and
will continue through-out the year so we might give them a shout. ;)
We are seeing 2015 to be the year of positivity in the chase for millenial’s
attention - as a recent report from ZenithOptimedia suggests. Brands like
Dove and Coca-Cola are set to ignite the online space with positive messages
in the quest of winning hearts and minds amongst this group. Being proud
members of the group ourselves, we agree that this is a very powerful strategy.
However, although these initiatives have good intentions at heart, they
sometimes end up turning very quickly into a PR disaster. For example,
the latest Starbucks #RaceTogether campaign. It wasn’t just the brand
perception that drove this campaign into a heated mess, it was the pure
execution of it, as Starbucks’s failed to turn the conversation around. Which
reminds us that an idea without well planned execution should stay on a
napkin. Sorry, Starbucks.
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Model S Auto Pilot
– Tesla –
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OK, so perhaps not a campaign as yet, but any disruptive engineers that install an
accelerationmodewiththeselection‘sport’or‘insane’getsourattention. With the
fortune of having a Tesla showroom in Londons Westfield, we’ve had our eye
on this souped up eco friendly play maker for a while. Connected car sales are
becoming largely driven by the connectivity that the car offers.
It seems that sentiment has been matched, step in and call shotgun Mr. Martin
Oberhaeser who has taken inspiration from the Model S 17” central console
screen by creating this beautiful, well considered prototype interface. We
highlight this, whilst car consoles tend to be widely outdated compared to their
wider cousins from the internet of things, which shouldn’t be the case considering
the cost of a vehicle compared to say an average tablet. Whilst we do need to
set precautions for limiting driver distraction, there could be two modes whilst
driving and stationary. The interface seen within Martins example would be very
useful for the latter. In terms of the former here is an experiment London agency
UsTwo have presented for the community to further discuss and iterate, we find
this a very interesting read whilst it highlights some of the pain points occurring
with current day car clusters along with defining rationale for potential solutions.
A considered car interface will not only make for a more useful, potentially
safer driving experience, it also has the potential to generate noise amongst
its user base in the digital world. How interesting would it be if we were to
mix the internet of things with accessible data visualisation to show personal,
timely rewards for drivers? There is a large luxury/petrol head consumer base
to appeal to who would no doubt love to broadcast their data, especially when
carrying the Tesla badge :). Tesla could potentially re-inforce their messaging
by highlighting the less harmful effects of driving a battery powered vehicle
over its gas guzzling alternatives. There is also a consideration for wearable
manufacturers to combine personal data with vehicle data for a further
immersive experience.
At present wearables aren’t pulling all the punches where its been reported in
January 2104 by Endeavour Partners “A third of US consumers who have owned
an activity tracker stopped using it within six months. There’s a long windy road
to the final answer, although as devices become more focussed around the
user and less on the tech, we believe these slightly cautious figures are for the
short term. We’ll park that debate for now whilst we remain excited for future
prototypes like Martins to get us revved up.

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Left Behind
– UNESCO Institute for Statistics –
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You may remember we featured a UNESCO interactive back in Volume 3
of the ICYMI. Data driven story telling was a real buzzword in 2014 and it
doesn’t seem to be letting off, well why would it when you can combine
empathy with the facts?
Across Africa, 28 million young and adolescent girls are out of school. In our
view UNESCO have set a sound approach in their latest interactive piece
by allowing users to explore the data allowing them to come to their own
conclusions. The left side of the screen displays interesting observations
pulled from the data, while the charts allow us to explore and compare in
more detail. The photographic images in the background make it impossible
to forget that there are real people behind these numbers, making the
information all the more impactful. The overall result is pretty impressive, this
is a fine benchmark on how to combine visualising charts within an engaging
photo rich story built for responsive viewing. One thing we would have liked
to see was the capability for users to broadcast specific key facts from the
charts they are viewing/interacting with. Additionally, the report may travel
further by re-purposing intriguing facts/chart elements to seed out across
UNESCO’s key social channels Twitter and Facebook over time.
For organisations intending to produce something quicker and slightly less
bespoke, the out of the box solution Shorthand can be a potential option as
we’ve come to see from the likes of BBC’s coverage on Westgate siege.

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Women in Science Live Longer, Live Well CCS: a 2 degree solution Regional Wellbeing
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Women in Science
– UNESCO Institute for Statistics –
Women are under-represented in science: just 30% of the world’s researchers
are female. An interactive online app from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics
allows us to explore where in the world there is a scarcity of scientists carrying
a pair of X chromosomes. In the UK, about 1 in 3 scientists are female, but in
both France and Germany, it’s just 1 in 4. The concept of visualising the figures
inside petri dishes is a nice idea; however, we are pleased they also included
a global map view as well as a dropdown option. It doesn’t take a scientist
to work out that the latter two options are far easier to use. You can flip the
interface between a map and a rather cute petri dish-cum-bubble chart, and
click to dig into individual country details or utilize the dropdown menu to
dive right into the data.
Offering three different ways to access the information could be overkill, or it
could be a smart way to appeal to a variety of users, some scientific types may
prefer the straightforward dropdown approach, while visual learners may be
attracted to the map and creative types may respond to the petri dish.
By selecting the region, followed by the country, the user is able to drill down
into the education pipeline, as well as a breakdown by sector and by field
for each country, exploring what factors discourage women from enrolling
in science-based programmes, what holds them back from advancement in
scientific careers and how best to level the playing field.
UIS uses this data to support policymaking to promote gender equality
in science and technology and to expand the role of women in all fields
of scientific research, and that certainly gets our attention! The app also
provides the option to download the data for use by others in additional
research and reporting of the findings.
The interactive is part of a wider programme launched by L’Oréal and
UNESCO in their joint effort to provide a valuable platform to support
over 2000 women in science globally, since 1998. To spark and continue
the conversation, DiscovHer, For Women in Science’s Twitter account and
YouTube channel are a stream of achievements with news and facts that offer
inspiring content around the topic.
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Live Longer, Live Well
– British Society for Research on
Ageing / AFAR / Glenn Foundation –
Humans are living longer than ever before. But Live Longer, Live Well claims
the current medical approach to ageing is all wrong. We focus on treating the
symptoms of getting old – diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s – rather than
understanding the underlying biological mechanisms that cause ageing itself.
Part of a BRSA drive to increase investment in ageing research, this video
animation by IIB Studio explains the complex science behind getting older
using simple, attractive infographics, showing how we not only need to raise
money for ageing research, but also make sure it is used in the right way. The
potential rewards are enormous – a longer, healthier life for everyone.
The motion graphic uses aspects of an infographic and kinetic typography,
along with a voiceover artist to communicate key data points; including
average life expectancy, various diseases of ageing, U.S. healthcare spend
and other factors that influence human “healthspan.” Bar graphs and line
charts highlight key information for the viewer throughout this data-driven
infographic, while a narrative style helps to drive the story forward.
At three minutes and 48 seconds, we would be interested to see how this
would take shape if broken up into a series of short, scripted bitesize videos on
the topic, to help garner even more views across social media channels.
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CCS: a 2 degree solution
– WBCSD –
How much coal, oil, and gas does the world get through in a single day? This
four-minute film uses stunning animations to visualise the actual quantities
of fossil fuels consumed globally – depicted as great rivers of oil, giant piles
of coal and huge, terrifying gas pipes running through New York City. The CO2
released from burning it all is shown as a cascade of blue bubbles erupting
from the ground, each one containing a tonne of carbon dioxide.
This video takes us on a journey, into aspects of our world many would
rather ignore. Vivid animations drive the point home by helping viewers to
physically see what we’re doing to our planet.
The most effective aspect of this video is the creativity used to present the
data points by strategically utilising scale via comparisons to large buildings
and monuments, such as the mountain of carbon dioxide standing much
taller than the Statue of Liberty. A voiceover may have helped to make this
video even more engaging to its audience.
The campaign message? Carbon capture and storage can play a role in
limiting global climate change to two degrees.
When done right, dramatic data visualisation like this can really bring big
numbers to life.
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Regional Wellbeing
– OECD –
How does your region perform when it comes to education, environment,
safety and other topics important to your well-being? This interactive site
created by Moritz Stefaner and Dominikus Baur allows you to measure
wellbeing in your region and compare it with 362 other OECD regions based
on nine topics central to the quality of our lives.
These topics include– income, jobs, health, access to services, environment,
education, safety, civic engagement and housing. A score is calculated for
each topic, allowing users to compare places and topics within and across
countries. Using location-based technology, the site is able to automatically
detect the region of the visitor (with permission), offering a seamless user
experience.
The success of this is all in the design. Colourful, flower-like designs (similar
to those pioneered by Stefaner and Baur in the earlier OECD Better Life
Index) visualise the unique well-being score profile of each region, while
sliding scales further break down each of the nine topics, sharing key
indicators that greatly impact the scores for each region. The site offers
loads of explanatory information including why this data is important, a
user’s guide, and frequently asked questions.
With the noble goal of improving people’s lives by improving public policies,
this site utilizes over 7,000 data points distilled into a visually appealing,
supremely user-friendly interface that won its creators an Information is
Beautiful silver award last November. While the current data focuses on states
and provinces, a second version of the site could drill down deeper into cities
and metropolitan areas for an even more comprehensive view of overall
well-being.
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Selfiecity F1 Timeline Friends in Space Braindance
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Selfiecity
– Digital Thought Facility –
In case you didn’t realise, 2014 was the year of the selfie. Ellen DeGeneres’
star-studded Oscar photo was retweeted a record breaking three million times.
It’s a phenomenon that has swept the globe, and now thanks to Selfiecity we
can see how different cultures are expressing themselves through their own
personal images. Produced under the creative direction of Moritz Stefaner,
this interactive tool allows us to view 32,000 selfies taken across five cities
from around the world to explore interesting patterns in this very public form
of self expression.
We are immediately presented with a series or histograms where photos have
been categorised according to gender, age, and mood, making some trends
immediately clear. We noticed that woman share more images than men
in all of the cities featured, but the difference in female vs. male selfies was
especially large in Moscow, and for some reason they have a tendency to look
more grumpy. Snappers in Bangkok however have been shown to be much
more cheerful.
We are then encouraged to apply a range of additional filters such as head
tilt, facial expressions and pose to see if we can identify interesting trends
for ourselves, and discover patterns we would never have expected. The
exploration process is immensely enjoyable, and encourages users to dig deep
and share there observations with others. So remember, the next time you
share a selfie, you may be expressing more than you had previously imagined.
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F1 Timeline
– Peter Cook –
Be prepared to hear the name Max Verstappen mentioned quite a bit during
2015. The Seventeen-year-old has become the youngest Formula 1 driver to
take to the starting grid as the the championship got underway in Melbourne
on March 15. The sport has seen teenagers race before, but the new Toro Rosso
driver will be almost a full two years younger than any who have raced before.
The trend for younger and younger drivers to take to the driving seat is clearly
visible in this comprehensive interactive piece from Peter Cook, visualising the
careers and successes of every F1 driver since 1950 using nothing more than
beautifully crafted bar charts. Many modern drivers would probably consider
retirement when they hit their mid 30s, however they would be considered
mere whippersnappers if they were racing just a few decades ago. At the time
of writing, young Max has not yet been included in this visualisation, however
once he is it’s clear that the scale used to show driver age is going to need to be
re-drawn, as he would fall off the screen.
This incredibly data rich piece allows us to sort drivers by age, timeline or race
count, and with the coloured scale used to display finishing positions of every
race, we can immediately identify the champions from the rest of the pack. We
love that fact that the visualisation does not make any compromises, every
race and every result in the history of F1 has been featured, allowing us to
explore the sport in enormous depth.
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Friends in Space
– Accurat –
Space, apparently, can be a dark and longly place. But it doesn’t need to be. Not
when you have thousands of friends and well-wishers tracking your progress
across the heavens and waving hello as you pass overhead. All this is thanks
to Friends in Space, a social network that extends beyond Earth and allows
Samantha Cristoforetti, the first Italian woman astronaut, to connect with
ground folk as she orbits the planet fifteen times a day from the International
Space Station.
With a simple click of a button we can send a “Hello” to Sam and other star-
gazers nearby, and they are able say hello back in real time, creating multiple
constellations of friends who all share a curiosity for space and for the unknown.
The interactive application has been designed and produced by Accurat in
collaboration with Sam herself, and will track her journey until she returns to
terraferma in May. We particularly like the real-time aspect of this piece, not only
seeing where in the world the International space station is currently orbiting,
but where other earth space enthusiasts are currently observing its progress. We
can even opt to overlay a live camera feed from the IIS as it gazes down towards
the planet we call home.
Without question, Sam will have made many new friends during this time who
will be eager to hear all about her out-of-world experience.
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Braindance
– Črtomir Just –
Listening to music can be a very emotional experience, and now thanks to
a team from Slovenia we can begin to see how different people respond.
Designer Črtomir Just has created a series of visual artworks using the
brainwaves from 20 volunteers as they listened to a piece of music for the first
time inside a sound and lightproof box. The music was composed especially for
the occasion by kleemar, and the levels of concentration and relaxation were
shown to dance erratically throughout the two minute experience.
The data has been visualised with brightly coloured waves, evoking images in
our minds of the patterns usually seen on the displays of sound equalisers or
hospital scanning equipment. Each artwork visualises data from a different
listener, and they all produce very different visual forms, suggesting no two
people experience music in quite the same way.
We are particularly fascinated by visualisations that make the invisible visible,
such as this piece on flute music that we recently stumbled across, as these
never fail to provide a totally new perspective.
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Ben Willers
Ben Willers leads data visualisation at infogr8 where he enjoys exploring and creating data rich
visualisations. After graduating from the University of Lincoln in 2012 with a MA in Design, Ben
won a competition set by the Information is Beautiful group and had work exhibited at ExpoViz
2012 in Paris. He reflects on his methodology in his chapter featured in New Challenges for Data
Design, a book which includes contributions from many of the leading minds in this field.
http://benwillers.com
What got you interested in information graphics?
It’s something that has always interested me. A few years ago I dug out some
drawing from when I was about 6 or 7 years old showing a step-by-step illustrated
guide to cooking and baking, so I think a pragmatic element has always been
there in the stuff I have created. However it was probably David McCandless’
Information is Beautiful book which acted as the catalyst and encouraged me to
start thinking about visualising data as a full time profession. But even then it took
a few months for the idea to really sink in. I first read the book in the summer of
2010, and then went back to university to study MA Design several months later,
however it wasn’t until I was a full semester in that I decided to rip up my original
proposal and focus my efforts purely on the visualisation of data. I had originally
set out to explore branding and packaging, and everyone on the programme was
encouraged to keep a journal so that we could document our study process. It
just so happened that I was also reading a book called Data Flow at the time, and
I decided to go down the infographic route for my log book. I created a simple
chart to visualise something that I had learned, or something interesting that had
happened to me each day, and also the amount of time I spent on certain activities.
After a few months it was clear to me and everyone else around me that the journal
itself was more interesting than the project I was working on, and things just
developed very quickly from there.
With data everything seems calculated and precise. But is there a time where
you’ve had to deal with uncertainty in your designs?
A great example of this was when I was creating my ‘Life’ piece right at the end of
my MA in which I experimented with visualising my happiness at various stages
across my life. I had previously created a series of visualisations depicting personal
activities I had been monitoring and recording, such as calorie intake, sleep patterns
and television viewing, however happiness was a little different because I had no
data or accurate means of measuring this. The final piece combined these more
subjective ideas with other datasets that were based an fact, such as the number of
hours worked in a part-time job at Tesco which came from old payslip information.
Who is usually the audience for your work?
The answer to that question varies so much depending on the project. Sometimes
I work with organisations who want to understand their own data better, and in
these cases there is sometimes not a lot of room for artistic freedom. Stephen Few
has written some great books which cover best practice, and I came across many
other examples during my studies. I also enjoy designing for audiences that are
not so versed with data, and here there is the additional challenge of balancing
clarity of communication with an element of engagingness. However my favourite
projects are often the ones when I challenge myself to push the boundaries find
methods of visualising data that would not be considered normal. In these cases I
am not so concerned about how others will react to my work, because ultimately I
am creating these for myself. Having said that I always enjoy pushing my work out
there to gauge how it is received, and the feedback is usually very interesting and
generates some worthy discussions!
Where do you think the practice is heading next, both in general and yours
specifically?
I think in general we are going to see many more data visualisations that are
reactive to events happening right now. Almost as soon as Madonna fell off the
stage at the Brit Awards the other night there were animated maps visualising the
reaction generated from Twitter followers. I am a big fan of all of this stuff, however
I also think that it’s a shame that there are so many pieces out there that only have
a moment to shine. I personally like to work on more considered pieces that can
continue to offer insights many years form now.
What do you think are the pitfalls with infographics today?
Sourcing of reputable information is a real concern of mine. I suspect many of
those that create infographics come up with the concept first, then try to locate and
retrofit data afterwards. In my experience finding really reputable data that you can
trust to support an idea can be challenging, and I think this is why we see so many
infographics which cite Wikipedia, or worse still sites like Yahoo Answers.
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Could you talk us through a couple of your favourite pieces, say one from the
past and one that’s current?
I think that my absolutely favourite piece ever has to be Florence Nightingale’s
Causes of Mortality diagram from 1858 in which she visualised the number of
wounded soldiers dying from infections diseases hospitals, to those being killed
on the battlefield during the Crimean War. Not because of the visualisation
itself, although I do find it very interesting, but I find the whole story behind it
utterly fascinating. Data visualisation is such a hot topic right now, and it’s easy
to forget that there is a lot of history in this area. Nightingale’s visualisation
approach was revolutionary for the time, and even without an established
community here efforts will still scorned upon by certain individuals who made
their feelings known. However the message that she wanted to convey was
powerful enough to convince the British army at this time to improve the quality
of healthcare in the hospitals, which no doubt helped save many lives after that.
If she were alive today I have no doubt that Florence would be creating all kinds
of crazy interactive charts that would be inspiring us all to seek new forms of
data visualisation.
From more recently I really liked Umbro’s poster showing every pass, shot and
goal during the 2010 Fifa World Cup from Michael Deal. It doesn’t attempt to
distill the information down in any way, instead we are shown all of the critical
moments from every game in a very condensed form which we are able to view
and explore freely.
On the other hand, can you think of an example where an infographic hasn’t
really helped?
I see many fantastic choropleth and bubble chart maps being produced and
shared on a daily basis, however there are probably just as many again that
haven’t really been been thought through and offer very little insight. This is
probably because it’s never been easier to produce maps of this type, and those
that create them do not necessarily need a lot of experience with this type of
content. It’s relatively simply to throw statistics onto a map to profile a certain
activity geographically, but quite often all we get is essentially a population
density map. This piece displaying economic activity across the US is a classic
example, however there are plenty more culprits like it out there.
What (if time and money were no object) would be your absolutely ideal
project be?
I believe that it’s a misconception that the visualisation of data should always
make trends and stories instantly clear. This notion has been around long before
Twitter, however it feels that everything nowadays has to have that immediate
‘wow’ factor. Some of my favourite visualisation examples are those which took a
little time to appreciate because it was not immediately obvious what they were
trying to show, but these can sometimes be some of the most rewarding and
engaging experiences if given the chance. So I would definitely relish the chance
to work on more of these types of pieces.
I feel constantly restricted by computer screen technology and would love to see
how visualisations could exist outside this medium. Viewing data visualisations in
an exhibition environment helps remove many of the technological boundaries,
with actions like zooming in and out made as simple as stepping forwards and
back. I would like to experiment with how data can be explored in a more tactile
manner using all the senses to create a more immersive experience.
Asking the questions was Christopher Twigg, Senior Lecturer in Design at the University of
Lincoln, and Ben’s mentor while studying MA Design from 2010 to 2011.
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dd:LONDON “Designing with Data”
Guardian Data Visualisation
The DataIQ Summit
Lean Book Club
Axure London
March 26th 2015, London, UK
Examining the relationship between data and design and the influence they
have on each other. How does data inform design decisions in user centric
design, and progressing further, how can we use data and technology to
design for us?
April 11th 2015, London, UK
A one-day workshop.
June 16th 2015, London, UK
Unique insight into how sector leaders are aligning their business strategy
around data and analytics.
Non London followers, we did try to find relevant events in your area, but
rest assured next season we’ll hunt out more events outside of the capital!
March 30th 2015, London, UK
“Seductive interaction design” by Stephen P. Anderson.
April 22nd - 12th 2015, London, UK
Responsive Style Guide and Board Games.
Big Data Innovation Summit
May 11th - 12th 2015, London, UK
Discussions around:
• Big Data: A Rich Flow of Revenue
• Hadoop, R, NoSQL & Open Source Software
• Big Data Analytics
• Data Visualization
• Big Data and Customer Engagement
Events

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How to Entertain audiences using data led content - Trend Report Spring 2015