2011 Bubbles, Lines, and String: How Information Visualization Shapes Society Peter HallData visualization has latelybecome an Unlikely form of mess entertainment. When. public health professor Hans Rosiing first presented his giant, animated graphs of floating bubbles—challenging popular pre- conceptions about global ife expectancy ‘and family sizes—he was met with whoops, ‘and applause atthe 2006 TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference. ' The Video ofthe presentation has since al- tracted 2.8 milion online viewers, making itthe seventh most-watched TED talk in the past five years, 2 "The stalistics of the ‘world have not been made groperly avail able sees Data provides the means by which science progresses, legislation changes, ‘and society advances; dataiss the enemy of \witoh hunts, bigotry, and ignorance (not to mention Creationism) rach Step. process involves decisions about what [Link] and what to prioritize. Yet the end result the visualization, caries an author- iy, timelessness, and objectivity that belies its origins. Curiously, this facts neglected Inthe otherwise rch discou'se around data visualization and information design. Johanna Drucker has observed that infor- mation designers almost entirely ignore hat she considered theoretical probloms: “An empiricist assumption that what you see is what is there underpins their practice. The self-evident character of ‘graphic entities—tines, marks, color shapes—Is never itself brought into ques- Tmight be dialectical, produced as artifacts cof exchange and emergence, isan idea foreign to the fields of engineering and information design."4 Toerpire why tre ical dscourse of the ars and humaniis i conspicuously teckng around visualization requires thet we take ameteiew of thecontexts in wich tis prectood. Vsuaization might be seperated nto tive categories of act, The fist, and most dominant, s GER Tis. 6 comainctiaoratores, Supetcomputer, end vast monitor aay trieyste funding of the mitary indus complex and a sense soseal impor tance, Aecoring to historian Ated Crosby, Pate Hat an argues that “almost every "® Examples in the scientific category would include visualizations of galaxy formation, pre~ icted weather and ol spill patterns, and simulations of electron behavior. ? Typically deploying the terms “data” or “information visualization," scientific visualization fash- ions itself as a tool of discovery improved through scientific method. The implicit ‘assumption is that the tool allows us to explore the data, without bias. Adopt- Ing industries are described by one clas- sic textbook in the field as those driven by continuous innovation and repeated discovery: ‘pharmaceutical drug research, oil-gas exploration, financial analysis and ‘manufacturing quality control.” ® To engage in the scientific discourse ‘around visualization requires familiarity vwith—ifnot higher degrees in—math- ematics, statistics, computer science, and cognitive psychology. But even the most cursory glance at the literature reveals @ positivist discourse driving questions of vi- sual form, grounded in principles of human ‘cognition. Is the visualization appropriate for the data? How does the visualization fare in terms of usability issues? How does the (universal) human brain respond to visu- alization x as opposedto visualization y? Journalistic Practice — The second category is ouralsic. A response tothe information tsunami, and dhiven by a maral or commercial cbige- tio Jn projects in this caspyate GERD Were ccerttecs Gre crerecorody ergo dtacts spd vin ana daca Pew patente oul category seeks {oop and oxplan hose elo As New Yor Times rope decor Seve Dunes putts curlob wel con doves anéreduceTadtonaly the dhrnln of rormation doignrs ose {taki tosrape shop. ond tome oes rely mr tlonctbonnnd eee Sat data, eatogory es te GIS ce EN ba te explore data or Morse. The New onc Times Greptice Deparment provisos paredgmatc example ooumalst nr trator doi, es made evcetnistast urine mpeend gepios har trang ta uricanee tars l pt, dae vore iho pst ela BN journal deogner band Mecandiss, Imearil, develop vavalzatons hat pronisearetalayerof commentary on other visualizations, such as his “billion dollar o-gram," which seeks to put military expenditure, ol revenue, foreign aid, and charitable donations in context through ‘comparison. His revelation, after mining ‘and visualzing Facebook data, that more ‘couples splitup around spring break and ‘Christmas than other times ofthe year, might be described as journalistic enter- tainment visualization. Rosiing’s Gapminder software for ‘make university students use and understand statistics toacquire a “Yact-hased” world view), bbutis ultimately a journalistic means to inform and transform public opinion. “Visualization and animation services that unveil the beauty of statistics for wide user ‘groups may nduce a paradigm shift from cisseminaticn to access," Rosling has ‘argued. "Data provided in animation format is well suitec to tell stories using television ‘and webcas's.""" Martin Wattenberg's ‘search tool uses simple computation methods to find repetition in texts, which are represented as 3-D "skyscrapers" over the text bod. Teaming up with journalist ‘Chase Davis, Wattenberg set Chimera to work to find “clone lawe'—legislation prewrtten for elected officials by corpora- tions or partisan groups. They found, for instance, that a law passed in Minnesota matched a law passed in Alaska exempt- ing firearms made and sold in-state from federal reguiations—"not exactly word for word but many, many passages,” noted ‘Wattenberg. "2 Googling the most distinc~ tive passages led to a website promoting the Firearms Freedom Act, a chilling re- minder thatthe laws of this country are not viriten by legislators but by special interest trcups. Discussion of formal issues in this ccategory tends to be dominated by the standards codified by authorities such as Edward Tufte, Donald Norman, and Ben Shneiderman. Examples will be familia to any designer: (Tufte), end should aspire to ‘sense thal the “The third category is artistic. Generally ‘misunderstood by the scientific com- ‘munity as cosmetic or frivolous, the art of visualization nevertheless has an impor- tant cultural role, reinforced by historical precedent. Artistic visualization, much ike thousands of years of art before i, reflects 171172