Stanford Writes an Article About My Course
Dave Deriso · 2016
How effective data visualizations let users have a conversation with data
A picture is worth a thousand words. The old adage is true — today, more than ever as the impact and importance of quality data visualization reaches across industries and has the power to improve how we tell stories.
The Stanford Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering (ICME) recently hosted the Xtrapolate roundtable, a forum to discuss the latest technology trends and use cases in data visualization. ICME lecturer Dave Deriso gave a talk on interactive 2D and 3D visualization using open source web tools, and computer science professor Maneesh Agrawala gave a talk on theory for effectively communicating quantitative information visually. Here's what they shared:
Interactive data visualizations turn plots into powerful interfaces for data exploration
JavaScript libraries for creating visualizations, such as D3.js have been given much attention; however, recent advances in data manipulation libraries have brought visual data interaction to the forefront. Libraries such as crossfilter and reductio use efficient algorithms for data filtering, enabling users to quickly sift through large datasets in a standard browser. When paired with D3.js, users can use the visual representation of data as an interface.
Ultimately, interactive visualizations allow users to have a conversation with the data — to ask questions and get immediate answers. “They take complex information and present it in a way that's accessible to a general audience,” Deriso says.
Interactive data visualizations are powerful marketing tools for academia and industry
Interactive data visualizations are living, breathing representations of data. Because they update dynamically, interactive data visualizations allow users to extract information based on their specific interest.
“Interactive visualizations are engaging. When a user enjoys interactively exploring your data, they are more likely to understand and appreciate it,” says Deriso.
Previously, complex 3D visualizations required specialized applications and high-performance computers. Recent advances in browser-based 3D graphics, powered by WebGL, have enabled these sophisticated scientific visualizations to be made available online. Web interfaces also allow these visualizations to become compelling interactive experiences.
“This was a wonderful neuroscience experiment and the visualization made it quite popular among neuroscientists,” explains Deriso. “You used to only see images of the brain printed in the research article, but now you could share the entire dataset, view it, and interact with it all from one link.”
Deriso also discussed how these tools could be ported to immersive virtual reality platforms, such as Google Cardboard and Oculus Rift. Deriso believes interactive web-based 2D, 3D, and VR will be the future of data visualization.
It's important to understand what kind of visual will allow for the best representation of data
Well-designed visuals allow readers to easily understand a lot of quantitative data at once. Unfortunately, poorly designed visuals are everywhere — in reports, magazines, books, on TV and the internet. Using computer vision and machine learning, two processes that attempt to duplicate the abilities of human vision by electronically perceiving and understanding an image, Agrawala's research focuses on figuring out how to let machines access the wealth of information locked inside of charts and graphs, so that ultimately, visuals can be redesigned to be more accurate and also easier to understand.
Graphical overlays bring visuals to life
Beyond visual redesign for optimal data representation, Agrawala brings visuals to life by adding graphical overlays — elements layered onto a visual to facilitate the perceptual and cognitive processing in chart reading.
It's important to be able to read text and charts together
Today, visuals are almost always embedded in text documents. Agrawala and his team are thinking about how to better integrate the reading of text and charts, so that readers are not forced to read them separately. Ideally, the reader would be able to simultaneously isolate text and the corresponding portion of the visual to read these two things together, and to allow text and visuals to simultaneously inform one another.