Shaking the “Pretty Picture” Stigma

Over at EagerEyes, Robert Kosara checks out the fantastic Information Visualization Manifesto and discusses the interesting conceptual differences between visualization for Beauty and visualization for Understanding.

Lima makes the distinction between data visualization and data art. The criteria are not perfectly clear-cut, and it’s easy to discuss a particular example ad nauseam. I did write about possible criteria a while ago though, and think that the distinction is pretty clear. What is the main question: Do you want to communicate the data or a concern? Do you care about perceptual effectiveness or beauty? Is the data a given or is showing the existence of the data part of the point?

via Shaking the “Pretty Picture” Stigma | EagerEyes.org.

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 .