Untitled. With the gutting of foreign coverage by most U.S. newspapers and the need to populate infinite Web space with content, a new creature has emerged: the foreign affairs blogger. Max Fisher, who hosts the Washington Post ’s WorldViews page, is a leading exemplar of the species. Fisher’s newsy nuggets are often low-priority zeitgeist items that may or may not be vignettes of greater themes: examples in recent days include the tunnel-smuggled delivery of KFC chicken into Gaza, the video of the Czech president possibly drunk, a staff-passenger brawl at Beijing airport, and New Zealand’s “war on cats.”
Fisher also concocts FAQ-style explainers on places in the news that he judges to be obscure to his readers (Chechnya and Dagestan, Central African Republic, Mali). And he is very keen on global surveys, whose results he summarizes, augments with his own interpretation, and typically renders with color-coded maps that drive home the key message. Where did these numbers come from? Like this: Why you should never trust a data visualisation | News. First of all, let me be clear: the headline of this article is a reference to Pete Warden's post, and should be read in the same way - as a caution against blind acceptance, rather than the wholesale condemnation of data visualisation.
An excellent blogpost has been receiving a lot of attention over the last week. Pete Warden, an experienced data scientist and author for O'Reilly on all things data, writes: The wonderful thing about being a data scientist is that I get all of the credibility of genuine science, with none of the irritating peer review or reproducibility worries ... I thought I was publishing an entertaining view of some data I'd extracted, but it was treated like a scientific study. This is an important acknowledgement of a very real problem, but in my view Warden has the wrong target in his crosshairs.
But there is: humans are visual creatures. Ultimately, I believe the solution is a two-way street. Where do you sit on this debate?
Graphing tools. Datavisualization.ch Selected Tools. Tools And Resources For Creating Infographics. Infographics. You have probably seen them before. There are so many out there on a wide variety of topics. Here are just a few. (Click the images to see more): These really are a great way to visualize data.
Here are a few of my favorite sites and tools to use when creating infographics. Wordle: Chances are this is one you have heard of. Visual.ly: It doesn't get much simpler than using Visual.ly. Stat Silk: This is a set of tools that you can download to create interactive maps and charts. Creately: Creatly is an online mindmapping program that is pretty powerful. Google Public Data Explorer: It probably goes without saying but Google has access to lots of data. Aviary Phoenix-Once you gather your images, charts and graphics, you are going to need a way to put them together. Kathy Schrock has an entire webiste dedicated to using infographics in the classroom. What other sites do you use to visualize data? Datawrapper. Infogr.am - Create infographics & online charts.
Piktochart. How to Use Colors in Graphic and Web Designing.