2 things that popped up in my mind when thinking about the term “data visualization” were – 1. charts and 2. colorful infographics. Hence, this talk, “How do designers use data visualization to take the numb out of numbers” by Wireframe has opened my mind to more interesting visualizing hidden stories behind the numbers.
Together with the typical data visualization, they also
- Turn data into a simulation game to get people to interact with the game to generate data, think about the data, and feel it. (Shirley Wu’s pandemic simulation game )
- OR use sounds to visualize data. This technique is called data sonification. It’s the process that translates data into sound. For example, sound from a Volatile Stock Market (Jordan Wirfs-Brock’s sonification), sound from a Calm Spaceship’s X-ray (NASA’s sonification), or sound from Covid-19 deaths (CarniDC’s sonification).
I am inspired to see how people are pushing the boundaries of designing a story with data. Apart from making the visualization look good, it’s an interesting challenge to make people feel something about the data and design something meaningful.