Is Bestario’s “Atlas of Innovation” Useful? or Data Porn?

Bestario, a Spanish infograhpics firm, has built a new website called “The Wainova World Atlas of Innovation”.  It attempts to map the world’s major science and business incubators with the professional associations linking them, but in the opinion of many winds up being a bit too much flash without any function.

The failing here illustrates an important point about information graphics in general: They’re only as good as the data they map. Without interesting data, they can’t tell us anything worth knowing–and the ultimate promise of infographics is that they provide us surprising insights that we would have otherwise missed. That’s why the best data visualization teams–such as that of The New York Times–are comprised equally of computer scientists, cartographers, journalists, and just a couple of designers

via An Online “Atlas of Innovation” | Design & Innovation | Fast Company.

This story written by Randall Hand

Randall Hand is a visualization scientist working for a federal research lab, aiding researchers to discover the insights buried within their terabyte datasets generated on some of the most powerful supercomputers in the world. He also runs VizWorld.com .