Over recent years, the process of publishing through various types of media often involves a range of visualisation. The common visuals involves are images, vibrant colours, map, graph, animation and videos. In this case, there need to some balance between design and function. Simple images might be dull and boring, but extremely complex mind map possibly will disregard the element of functionality. On top of that, any form of data visualisation should communicate information clearly and effectively as well as assisting readers to make sense of the data (Friedman 2008 ).
Most of the reading for this week provides a range of examples of data visualisation regarding the topic of climate change, global warming and the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. In this context, these examples prove the idea of overwhelmingly powerful feature of visual experience (Lecture 9). Two specific examples that are appealing and remarkable are visuals and data presented in these websites:-
This website portrays the issue of global warming from two perspective; The Global Warming Sceptics (Sceptics) and The Scientific Consensus (Believers). A lot of issues and thoughts centred around global warming are analyzed from both parties. In my opinion, analyzing this issue from two different sides provides the reader with a greater and broader scope of the topic. In addition, images, maps, and graphs are utilized in order to assist with the visualisation process by providing the visual aid.
However, there are too much data presented in this websites which makes it difficult to for the reader to reach the final conclusion. Even worse, each side put forward reasonable and convincing arguments, together with several facts for each point. In this context, emphasizing important key issues and data will assist the process of communication of information to the reader.
‘CO2 Now ‘deals with the rising amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Information about carbon emissions are represented as graphs, series of images, and tempting large fonts. Unlike the previous example, facts and statistics in this website strongly support the believers of rising carbon emissions, and the arguments for the sceptics about this issue are absent. In this case, one of the strength of data visualisation is the use of real images in one of the entry entitled ‘Global Carbon Emission’. Real images may shift individual experiences which he/she have been exposed with man-made graphics and expression for a long period of time.
On the other hand, some scientific terms used in this websites might not be understandable for people without science background or those that only acquire low educational level. Publishing is about making something public, which must consider the fact that there are different types of people in the society. Not all members of society can interpret information that contains technical jargon. In fact, it must be avoided and replaced with simpler expression.
This video demonstrate how geographical data can be presented using ‘ Treemaps’. Treemaps offer a compact data visualisation of large amount of quantitative data. In addition, each unit of data can be assigned with different colours and sizes.
References:-
Friedman , V. 2008, Data Visualisation and Infographics, accessed 5 May 2011 <http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/01/14/monday-inspiration-data-visualization-and-infographics/ >
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