Data Visualization

Week 8 

 The assignment this week was to watch the following  TED video about graphic images and answer the following questions.

1. What is the speaker’s primary argument concerning the visual representation of data?

When visualizing data information on a chart or pie figure it makes more sense, He explains how information design can help us get through information accumulation on the web and how simple charts can show patterns that we never would have seen otherwise. He describes that he started as a programmer, and then was a writer for about twenty years, but only recently started designing. He learned to put  data together and the skills oh his own. David says that anyone can do it too just by putting things together in a way that we understand better.

2. Give three examples of visual representations of data that were talked about in the video. How did visualization aid the audience in understanding the data?

Several examples were given, the first one was a chart representing the world’s fears, showing  the swan flu, the bird flu, millennium bug and asteroid collision fears. The second chart represented the fears on the violent video games and he talked about the peak times which were November and April every year. The third chart was related to the break up times. Another chart was showing the military budget from different countries. One more chart was related to oil snake showing evidence as a nutritional supplement.

3. The speaker discussed the amount of time that it took him to create a visual data representation of

research about supplements. What does this tell us about the nature of research? How did his time

spent benefit the audience? How does this relate to your research process?

He performed action research, he mentions that he spent one month gathering information from about one thousand articles, he collapsed that information into a visual information and combining “language of the eye with language of the mind”, which is easier to understand by visualization.

4. What graphic representations of data are you going to use in your literature review? Based on the

Information in this video what criteria are you going to use to choose effective images?

I think I’m going to use a graph that shows the number of illegal youth that are eligible to apply now and the number that will be eligible in about 5 years.