The beauty of data visualization - David McCandless

Summary

El discurso explora cómo la sobrecarga de información puede mitigarse a través de la visualización de datos, permitiendo ver patrones y conexiones importantes. El uso de la visualización revela patrones ocultos y proporciona una comprensión más profunda de grandes volúmenes de datos. Ejemplos como el presupuesto militar de EE. UU. y las perspectivas políticas muestran cómo cambiar la perspectiva y el comportamiento. La visualización de información no solo es una solución estética, sino también una herramienta poderosa para el conocimiento y la toma de decisiones.

Takeaways

• 🧠 La sobrecarga de información es un problema común, pero visualizar la información puede ayudar a ver patrones y conexiones importantes.
• 🎨 La visualización de datos no solo puede ser útil, sino también atractiva estéticamente.
• 💰 La información sobre grandes sumas de dinero en los medios de comunicación puede ser incoherente sin un contexto visual.
• 📊 Al representar cantidades económicas con imágenes, podemos ver relaciones y patrones que de otro modo serían invisibles.
• 🌐 La visualización de datos puede ayudar a comprender mejor las noticias y los eventos del mundo.
• 📈 Los datos visuales pueden revelar patrones ocultos, como la relación entre la preocupación por los videojuegos violentos y los eventos anuales.
• 🌍 Los medios de comunicación a menudo informan sobre temores globales, y la visualización puede mostrar cómo estos temores han cambiado con el tiempo.
• 📊 La visualización de datos es una forma de compresión del conocimiento, permitiendo que una gran cantidad de información se entienda rápidamente.
• 🔍 Al visualizar datos relativos en lugar de datos absolutos, podemos obtener una imagen más precisa y completa de la realidad.
• 🌟 La información visual puede cambiar nuestra perspectiva y, posiblemente, nuestro comportamiento.
• 🛠 La información visual es una herramienta poderosa para resolver problemas de información en nuestra sociedad, ofreciendo soluciones elegantes y claras.

Q & A

¿Qué solución propone el orador para abordar el exceso de información?

El orador propone utilizar más la visión y visualizar información para poder ver los patrones y conexiones importantes, y diseñar esa información de manera que tenga más sentido, cuente una historia o permita enfocarse solo en la información importante.

¿Cómo se describe la imagen del 'billon dollar a gram' en el discurso?

La imagen del 'billon dollar a gram' se creó debido a la frustración del orador con la forma en que se informaba sobre cantidades de miles de millones de dólares en los medios de prensa sin contexto. Se construyó scrapeando cifras de varias fuentes de noticias y escalando las cajas según esas cantidades, con colores que representan los motivos detrás del dinero.

¿Qué revela la visualización de la imagen del 'billon dollar a gram'?

La visualización muestra relaciones y patrones entre números que de otro modo estarían dispersos en múltiples informes de noticias, permitiendo tener una comprensión más profunda y contextualizada de las cifras económicas.

¿Cómo se relaciona la visualización de los miedos globales con los medios de comunicación?

La visualización de los miedos globales muestra cómo la intensidad de ciertos temores, reportados en los medios, varía con el tiempo. El orador señala patrones ocultos, como la aparición regular de preocupaciones por videojuegos violentos en noviembre y abril, vinculados a la temporada de Navidad y al aniversario del tiroteo de Columbine.

¿Qué revela el análisis de la relación entre el presupuesto militar de Estados Unidos y su PIB?

El análisis muestra que, aunque Estados Unidos tiene el presupuesto militar más grande en términos absolutos, en proporción al PIB, otros países tienen una mayor inversión en su defensa, lo que cambia la perspectiva sobre la política de defensa de Estados Unidos.

¿Cómo se describe el proceso de creación de la CV visual del orador?

El orador creó su CV visual para comunicar su trayectoria profesional, que incluye ser programador, escritor y diseñador. Destaca que no ha estudiado diseño formalmente, sino que ha aprendido a través de la práctica y la exposición a información y diseño a lo largo de los años.

¿Qué es un 'information map' según el orador?

Un 'information map' es una representación visual que permite explorar la información con la mirada, similar a un mapa, y que es útil cuando se está perdido en un laberinto de información.

¿Qué se entiende por 'data is the new oil' y cómo el orador sugiere adaptar esta metáfora?

La frase 'data is the new oil' sugiere que los datos son un recurso valioso y esencial en la economía moderna. El orador sugiere adaptar esta metáfora a 'data is the new soil', ya que ve los datos como un medio creativo fértil que puede ser moldeado para proporcionar nuevas innovaciones y perspectivas.

¿Cómo se relaciona el trabajo del orador con la de Hans Rosling?

El orador se inspira en el trabajo de Hans Rosling, quien utilizó los datos para cambiar la mentalidad de las personas. El orador busca hacer lo mismo con la visualización de información, permitiendo que las personas vean las relaciones y patrones que de otro modo pasarían desapercibidos.

¿Qué es un 'balloon race' y cómo se utiliza en el discurso para representar datos?

Un 'balloon race' es una representación de datos en la que el eje vertical representa la cantidad de evidencia científica y los bubbles representan la popularidad de un suplemento dietético. Es una forma de visualizar de manera clara la relación entre eficacia y popularidad.

¿Cómo el orador describe el impacto de la visualización de información en su propia vida?

El orador describe cómo la visualización de información ha cambiado su perspectiva y su forma de pensar, permitiéndole ver patrones y relaciones que de otro modo no notaría, y cómo esto ha tenido un impacto en su vida personal y profesional.

Outlines

00:00

📊 Visualización de Información para Entender Datos

El primer párrafo discute el problema de la sobrecarga de información y propone una solución sencilla: utilizar la visión para visualizar información. Esto permite identificar patrones y conexiones importantes y diseñar la información de tal manera que tenga sentido, cuente una historia o se centre únicamente en los datos relevantes. Se presenta una imagen que compara cantidades de dinero en términos visuales y relativos, con colores que representan los motivos detrás de los fondos. Se destaca la capacidad de la visualización para transformar datos en un paisaje explorable y para revelar patrones ocultos, como la relación entre la preocupación mediática por los videojuegos violentos y eventos como el tiroteo de Columbine.

05:01

🌱 La Metáfora de los Datos como Tierra Fértil

El segundo párrafo habla sobre la metáfora de los datos como el nuevo petróleo y propone una adaptación: los datos son más bien la nueva tierra. Los datos, acumulados en línea y conectados a través de redes, son un medio fértil que permite la creación de visualizaciones y gráficos de información, que son como flores que brotan de esta tierra. Se muestra cómo la información visual puede ser un alivio en un entorno de información densa y cómo la visualización de datos puede revelar patrones ocultos, como la frecuencia de los estados de Facebook que mencionan rupturas románticas.

10:01

🌐 Cambiar Perspectivas con Visualizaciones de Datos

El tercer párrafo se enfoca en cómo las visualizaciones de datos pueden cambiar nuestra perspectiva y comportamiento. Se utiliza el ejemplo del presupuesto militar de Estados Unidos, que en términos absolutos es el más grande del mundo, pero en proporción al PIB, otros países tienen una mayor inversión. También se muestra cómo la visualización puede ayudar a entender mejor otros temas, como la relación entre la popularidad y la eficacia de los suplementos nutricionales, y cómo la información visual puede ser interactiva y actualizable en tiempo real.

15:04

🌈 La Visualización de Conceptos Políticos

El cuarto y último párrafo explora la visualización de conceptos políticos y cómo estas pueden ayudar a entender los pensamientos de otros y a cambiar nuestra propia perspectiva. Se presenta una visualización del espectro político que muestra cómo las ideas se filtran desde el gobierno hasta la sociedad, las familias y los individuos. La visualización de datos no solo se limita a números, sino que también puede aplicarse a ideas y conceptos, y puede ser una herramienta para abordar problemas de información en nuestra sociedad, desde la sobrecarga hasta la falta de transparencia.

Keywords

💡Sobrecarga de información

La sobrecarga de información se refiere a la dificultad de procesar la gran cantidad de datos que recibimos diariamente. En el video, se menciona como una de las razones por las que la visualización de la información es importante, ya que nos ayuda a encontrar patrones y conexiones relevantes en un mar de datos abrumador.

💡Visualización de información

La visualización de información es el proceso de representar datos de manera gráfica para facilitar su comprensión. El video enfatiza su importancia para hacer que los datos tengan más sentido, contar historias o permitir enfocarnos solo en la información importante.

💡Diseño de información

El diseño de información es una disciplina que se enfoca en resolver problemas relacionados con la información a través de la presentación y organización eficaz. En el video, se presenta como una solución para problemas de información en la sociedad, como la sobrecarga y la falta de transparencia.

💡Datos

Los datos son hechos o números que se recopilan para su análisis o uso en la toma de decisiones. El video destaca cómo los datos, cuando se visualizan, pueden revelar patrones y proporcionar nuevas perspectivas que de otro modo serían invisibles.

💡Mapa de información

Un mapa de información es una representación visual de datos que permite a las personas explorar y comprender patrones y relaciones. En el video, se describe cómo la visualización de datos puede convertirse en un mapa que ayuda a navegar en un entorno de información denso.

💡Perspectiva

La perspectiva es la forma en que se ve o se interpreta algo. El video muestra cómo la visualización de datos puede cambiar nuestra perspectiva al proporcionar información relativa y comparativa que desafía las percepciones iniciales.

💡Conceptos

Los conceptos son ideas o principios abstractos que se pueden ilustrar y explorar a través de la visualización de información. En el video, se utiliza la visualización para examinar conceptos como el gasto militar y el espectro político, ofreciendo una comprensión más profunda de estos temas.

💡Evidencia

La evidencia se refiere a la información empírica que respalda una afirmación o hipótesis. En el contexto del video, la visualización de la evidencia científica ayuda a los espectadores a comprender la relación entre la efectividad y la popularidad de los suplementos nutricionales.

💡Creatividad

La creatividad es la capacidad para generar ideas o soluciones originales y útiles. El video sugiere que el uso de la visualización de información puede ser una forma creativa de abordar problemas de información y de presentar datos de una manera atractiva y comprensible.

💡Transparencia

La transparencia hace referencia a la claridad y la accesibilidad de la información. El video argumenta que la visualización de datos puede mejorar la transparencia, permitiendo a las personas ver y entender mejor los datos y su contexto.

Highlights

Information overload can be mitigated by using our eyes more and visualizing information to see patterns and connections.

Visualizing large amounts of money in context can provide clarity and understanding.

Colors in the billion dollar a gram image represent different motivations behind the money: purple for fighting, red for giving, and green for profiteering.

Visualization allows for a different relationship with numbers and reveals patterns and connections between them.

Examples given include OPEC's revenue, American charity donations, foreign aid, and the costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

African debt and the financial crisis costs are visualized to show their impact on the world economy.

A landscape of the world's fears is created using the intensity of media-reported fears over time.

Hidden patterns in data, such as the regularity of violent video game concerns, are revealed through visualization.

The idea that data is the new oil is challenged, suggesting data is more like fertile soil for creativity and innovation.

Visualizations and infographics are compared to flowers blooming from a fertile medium of data.

A dataset showing the pattern of breakups on Facebook updates is presented, revealing interesting insights into human behavior.

The importance of asking the right questions and working with data in the right way to reveal interesting insights is emphasized.

The speaker's visual CV is introduced as an example of applying visualization to personal information.

The concept of design literacy being instilled through exposure to media and information design is discussed.

The bandwidth of the senses is compared to computer terms, highlighting the speed and capacity of human vision.

Visualization combines the language of the eye with the language of the mind, enhancing understanding and perspective.

The relationship between absolute figures like military budgets and relative figures like GDP is explored through visualization.

Visualization can change perspectives and behaviors, as shown with the example of nutritional supplements.

An interactive app created from a visualization of nutritional supplements demonstrates how data can be made alive and dynamic.

Information visualization is applied to concepts and ideas, such as the political spectrum, to understand worldviews.

The importance of design in solving information problems and providing elegant solutions is emphasized.

A quick visualization example shows the CO2 emissions from the Icelandic volcano compared to grounded planes.

Transcripts

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it feels like we're all suffering from

information overload or data glut and

the good news is there might be an easy

solution to that and that's using our

eyes more so visualizing information so

that we can see the patterns and

connections that matter and then design

in that information so it makes more

sense or it tells a story or allows us

to focus only on the information that's

important failing that visualized

information can just look really cool so

let's

see this is the billion dollar a gram

and this image arose out of frustration

I had with the reporting a billion

dollar amounts in the press that is

they're meaningless without context 500

billion for this pipeline 20 billion for

this war it doesn't make any sense so

the only way to understand it is

visually and relatively so I scraped a

load of reported figures from various

news outlets and then scaled the boxes

according to those amounts and the

colors here represent the motivation

behind the money so purple is uh

fighting and red is giving money away

and green is profiteering and what you

can see straight away is you start to

have a different relationship to the

numbers you can literally see them but

more importantly you start to see

patterns and connections between numbers

that would otherwise be scattered across

multiple news reports let me point out

some that I really like this is opec's

revenue this green box here 780 billion

a year and this little pixel in the

corner 3 billion that's their climate

change

fund Americans incredibly generous

people over 300 billion a year donated

to charity every year compared with the

amount of foreign aid given by the top

17 industrialized nations at 120 billion

and then of course the Iraq War predict

icted to cost just 60 billion back in

2003 and the mushroom slightly

Afghanistan and Iraq mushroom now to

3,000

billion so now it's great now we have

this texture and we can add numbers to

it as well so we can say well new figure

comes out let's see African debt how

much of this diagram do you think might

be taken up by the debt that Africa owes

to the West let's take a look so there

it is 227 billion is what Africa owes

and the recent financial crisis how much

of this diagram might that figure take

up that what does that cost the world

let's take a look at that douche which I

think is the appropriate sound effect

from that much

money

11,900

billion so by visualizing this

information we turned it into a

landscape that you can explore with your

eyes a kind of map really a sort of

information map when you're lost in

information an information map is kind

of

useful so I want to show you another

landscape now I need to imagine what a

landscape of the world's fears might

look like let's take a look this is

mountains out of mle Hills a timeline of

global media

Panic so I'll label this for you in a

second but the height here I want to

point out is the intensity of certain

fears in as reported in the media let me

Point them out so this swine flu

pink bird

flu s brownish here remember that one

the millennium

bug terrible disaster uh these little

green Peaks are asteroid

collisions and in summer here killer

[Laughter]

wasps so these are what our fears look

like over time in a media um but what I

love and I'm a journalist and what I

love is finding hidden patterns I love

being a data detective and there's a

very interesting and odd pattern hidden

in this data that you can only see when

you visualize it let me highlight it for

you see this line This is a landscape

for violent video games as you can see

there's a kind of odd regular pattern in

the data Twin Peaks every year if we

look closer we see those Peaks occur at

the same month every year why well

November Christmas video games come out

and there may well be an upsurge and

concern about their content but April

isn't a particularly massive month for

um video games why April well in April

1999 was the Columbine shooting and

since then that fear has been remembered

by the media and Echoes through the

group mind gradually through the year

you have retrospectives anniversaries

court cases even copycat shootings all

pushing that fear into the

agenda and there's another pattern here

as well can you spot it see that Gap

there there's a gap and it affects all

the other stor

why is there a Gap there you see where

it starts September 2001 when we had

something very real to be scared

about so I've been working as a data

journalist for about a year and I keep

hearing a

phrase all the time which is this data

is the new

oil and data is a kind of ubiquitous

resource that we can shape to provide

new Innovations and new insights and

it's all around us and it can be mined

very easily and it's not a particular

great metaphor in these times especially

you live around the Gulf of Mexico but I

would perhaps adapt this metaphor

slightly and I would say the data is the

new

soil because for me it feels like a

fertile creative medium you over the

years online we've laid down um a huge

amount of information and data and we

irrigated with networks and connectivity

and it's been worked and tilled by

unpaid workers and governments and all

right I'm kind of milking the metaphor a

little bit but it's it's a really first

fertile medium and it feels like

visualizations infographics data

visualizations they feel like flowers

blooming from this medium but if you

look at it directly it's just a load of

numbers and disconnected facts but if

you start working with it and playing

with it in a certain way interesting

things can appear and and different

patterns can be revealed let me show you

this can you guess what this data set is

what Rises twice a year once in Easter

and then two weeks before Christmas has

a mini Peak every Monday and then

flattens out over the summer I'll take

answers chocolate you might want to get

some chocolate in any other

guesses shopping uh yeah retail therapy

might

help sick cleave yeah you'll definitely

want to take some time off should we

see

so uh information Guru Lee Byron and

myself we scraped 10,000 status Facebook

updates for the phrase break up and

broken up and this was the pattern we

found people clearing out for spring

break uh coming out of very bad weekends

on the Monday being single over the

summer and then the lowest day of the

year of course Christmas Day who would

do

that so there's a Titanic amount of data

out there now

unprecedented uh but if you ask the

right kind of question or you work it in

the right kind of way interesting things

can

emerge so um information is beautiful

data is beautiful I wonder if I could

make my life beautiful and here's my

visual CV I'm not quite sure I've

succeeded pretty blocky colors aren't

that great but I wanted to convey

something to you um you know started as

a programmer and then I worked as a

writer for many years about 20 years in

print online and in advertising and only

recently have I started designing and uh

I've never been to design school I've

never studied arts or anything I just

kind of learned through doing U and when

I started designing an odd I've

discovered an odd thing about myself I

already knew how to

design but it wasn't like I was imedi

amazingly brilliant at it but more like

I was sensitive to the um the ideas of

grids and space and alignment and

typography

it's almost like being exposed to all

this media over the years had instilled

a kind of dormant design literacy in me

um and I don't feel like I'm unique I

feel like every day all of us now are

being blasted by information design it's

being poured into our eyes through the

web and we're all visualizers now we're

all demanding a visual aspect to our

information um and there's something

almost quite magical about visual

information it's it's effortless it

literally pours it in

and if you're in navigating a dense

information jungle coming across a

beautiful graphic or a lovely data

visualization it's a relief it's like

coming across a clearing in the jungle

and I was curious about this so I it led

me to the work of a Danish physicist

called to nor tras and he converted the

bandwidth of the senses into computer

terms so here we go this is your senses

pouring into your senses every second

your sense of sight is the fastest it

has the same bandwidth as a computer

network then you have touch which about

the speed of a USB key and then you have

hearing and smell which is the

throughput of a hard disk and then you

have poor old taste which is like rarely

the throughput of a pocket calculator

and that little square in the corner

0.7% that's the amount we're actually

aware of so a lot of your vision is

pouring the bulk of it is Visual and

it's pouring in it's

unconscious and the eye is exquisitly

sensitive to patterns in variations in

color shapee and pattern it loves them

it calls them beautiful it's the

language of the eye and if you combine

the language of the eye with the

language of the mind which is about

words and numbers and Concepts you start

speaking two languages simultaneously

each enhancing the

other so you have the I and then you

drop in the concepts and that whole

thing it's two languages both working at

the same time so we can use this new

kind of language if you'd like to alter

our perspective or change our views let

me ask you a simple question with a

really simple simp Le answer who has the

biggest military budget it's got to be

America right massive 609 billion in

2008 607 rather so massive in fact that

it can contain all the other military

budgets in the world inside itself

gobble gobble gobble gobble gobble now

you can see Africa's total debt there

and the UK budget deficit for reference

so that might well chime with your view

that America is um a sort of

warmongering military machine out to

overpower the world with its huge

Industrial military complex but is it

true that America has the biggest

military budget because America is

incredibly rich country in fact it's so

massively Rich that it can contain the

four other top industrialized nations

economies inside itself it's so vastly

rich so its military budget is bound to

be enormous so to be fair and to alter

our perspective we have to bring in

another data set that data set is GDP or

what the country is earning who has the

biggest budget as a proportion of GDP

let's have a look that changes the

picture

considerably other countries pop into

view that you perhaps weren't

considering and America drops into eth

and you can also do this with soldiers

who has the most soldiers it's got to be

China of course 2.1 million again

chiming with your view that China has a

militarized regime ready to you know

mobilize its enormous forces but of

course China has enormous population so

if we do the same we see a radically

different picture China drops to 124th

it actually has a tiny Army

when you take other data into

consideration so absolute figures like

the military budget in a connected World

kind of don't give you the whole picture

they're not as true as they could be we

need relative figures that are connected

to other data so that we can see a

fuller picture and then that can lead to

US changing our perspective as Hans

rosling the master my master said um let

the data set change your

mindset and if they can do that maybe it

can also change your behavior take a

look at this one I'm a bit of a health

nut I love kind of like taking

supplements and being fit but I can

never understand what's going on in

terms of evidence there's always

conflicting evidence should I take

vitamin C should we Tak in wheat grass

so this is the visualization of all the

evidence for nutritional supplements

this this kind of diagram is called a

balloon race so the higher up the image

the more evidence there is for each

supplement and the bubbles correspond to

popularity as regards to Google hits so

you can kind of immediately apprehend

the relationship between efficacy and

popularity but you can also if you grade

the evidence sort of do a worth it line

and so supplements above this line are

worth investigating but only for the

conditions listed below and then

supplements below the line are perhaps

not worth

investigating now this image constitutes

a huge amount of work we scraped uh like

1,000 studies from PubMed the biomedical

database and we compiled them and graded

them all and it was incredibly

frustrating for me because I had a book

of 250 visualizations to do for my book

and I spent a month doing this and I'd

only filled two

pages but what it points to is that

visualizing information like this is a

is a form of of knowledge compression

it's a way of squeezing an enormous

amount of information and understanding

into a small

space and once you've curated that data

and once you clean that data and once

it's there you can do cool stuff like

this so I converted this into to an

interactive app so I can now generate

this application online this

visualization online and I can say yeah

brilliant so it's it spawns itself and

then I can say well just show me the

stuff that affects heart health so let's

filter that out so heart has filled out

so I can see if I'm curious about that I

think no no I don't want to take any

synthetics I just want to see plants and

and uh just show me herbs and plants and

we go all the natural ingredients now

this app is spawning itself from the dat

the data is all stored in a Google doc

and it's literally generating itself

from that data so the data is now alive

this is a living image and I can update

in a second new evidence comes out I

just changed a row on a spreadsheet

douche again this the image re recreates

itself so it's cool it's it's kind of

living um but it kind of can go beyond

data and it can go beyond numbers and I

like to apply information visualization

to ideas and

Concepts this this is a visualization of

the political Spectrum an attempt for me

to try and understand how it works and

how the ideas percolate down from

government into society and culture into

families into individuals into their

beliefs and then back round again in a

cycle what I love about this image is

it's it's made up of Concepts it

explores our worldviews and it helps us

was helps me anyway to see what others

think and to see where they're coming

from and it feels just incredibly cool

to do that and what was most exciting

for me designing this was that when I

was designing this image I desperately

wanted this side the left side to be

better than the right side being kind of

journalist left leaning

person but I couldn't because I would

have created a lopsided biased diagram

so in order to really create a full

image I had to honor the perspectives on

the right hand side and at the same time

kind of comfortably recognize how many

of those qualities were actually in me

which is very very annoying and

uncomfortable but not too uncomfortable

because there's

something unthreatening about seeing a

political perspective versus being told

or forced to listen to one it's actually

you're capable of holding conflicting

viewpoints joyously when you can see

them it's even fun to engage with them

because it's

visual so that's sort exciting for me

seeing how data can change my

perspective and change my mind Midstream

beautiful lovely

data

so just to wrap up I wanted to say that

it feels to me that design is about

solving problems and providing elegant

Solutions and information design is

about solving information problems and

it feels like we have a lot of

information problems in our society at

the moment from the overload and

saturation to the breakdown of trust and

reliability and Runway skepticism and

lack of transparency or even just

interestingness I mean I find

information just too interesting it has

a magnetic quality that draws me in so

visualizing information can give us a

very quick solution to those kinds of

problems and even when the information

is terrible the visual can be quite

beautiful and often we can get clarity

or the answer to a simple question very

quickly like this one the recent

Icelandic

volcano uh which was emitting the most

CO2 was it the plains or the volcano the

grounded planes or the volcano so we can

have a look we look at the data and we

see yep volcano emitted 150,000 tons the

ground in plain would emitted 345,000 if

they were in the sky so essentially we

had our first carbon neutral

volcano

yeah

and that is beautiful thank

[Applause]

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you