For the last 5 days we have been working on a data visualization project with guidance from shawn and david. The aim of the project was to choose a UNdata set and develop it into  visual representation using flash. We wanted to create a program that would allow us to explore the data, learn from it and raise questions that we could research further.

Myself and Sid (my partner for the project) decided to choose two sets of data to compare…these were the use of internet (per 100) and the use of personal computers (per 100) we narrowed our data set down to ten counties across 15 years.  We represented our data using very visual icons, that we felt people could relate to and familiar with. We created two filters so you could either sort by specific countries or by different levels of computer/internet usage….The design was fully programed using actionscript and working…but her are some screen shots of our visualization. (i’m not sure how to get a swf on wordpress!!)

each man representing 1% of population

symbols scaling depending on internet/computer usage

different symbols for filters

By being able to play around and see the data vizualy it was amazing to see the data come to life and see patterns and unexpected occurances. A few very important points that we learnt from our critique were……. always remember the usability of your interface, how will people understand it if is there first time using it….Being able to compare different sets of data on one page is great for comparisons……….always remember to display all the basic information before going deeper.

The last week has been  great…….i am really happy that we were given this opportunity to learn flash…it felt very worthwhile. Flash seems like a very powerful tool especially when it comes to design interactive screen based designs.

A few of my first sketches i build using actionscript code in flex builder These images areal random but today we are using UN data to start our proper visualizations!

Today we started a 2 week data vizualization module, which will be taught by Shawn Allen (Stamen) and Dave Mellis (CIID)

“Each day the world produces untold amounts of information. interactive data vizualizations is a practice that aims to distill and communicate that information to people in visual forms that are easy and fun to explore, understand and use. In this two week module, students will investigate the roles of intuitive user interfaces in data vizualization.

They will learn how metaphors are used to convey unfamiliar information, and how mental models aid in the interpretation of complex visual displays.  They will then use a bottom-up interative process to create interactive displays of UN data using adobe flash” Course Syllabus

Today  we were given a fantastic overview of some of the world’s most well known and successful data visualization projects and started to learn flash! It has a complex interface compared to programming platforms such as processing that i am used to, but i can see it has huge potential, so i can’t wait for the next two weeks!

i’l keep you posted