Sustainable Human Development and Visual Analytics
The incorporation of embedded interactive data visualizations to reports in any field of expertise greatly increases the ability to communicate large complex data sets. Gapminder.org is one of the most useful tools I have stumbled upon. Check it out here. I first learned about it after seeing a Ted Talk. Created by Hans Rosling, the online based tool allows anyone to view a comprehensive set of global statistics in an easy to visualize form. There are many data visualization products available, but without easy access to data, it is very difficult to make full use of these programs. Gapminder is linked to UN statistics databases in order to generate a wide variety of visual datasets. Gapminder can produce many combinations of data into one easy to understand graphic. The 'play button' produces a moving graphic to convey data with respect to time or any other number of factors.
The idea of visual analytics is not new, but now the volume of data that is collected through the digital system we now have allows for larger and more complex data sets than ever before. In 1854, Dr. John Snow plotted cholera-related deaths on a map to look at the relationship between deaths and location in London, England. After collecting a large enough sample of data, the pattern emerged that most of the deaths were within walking distance of one particular water pump, which provided residents with drinking water. He showed that this pump was taking water from a contaminated section of the Thames river.
Now, imagine if you had to look for the relationships in this map shown in a table with latitudes and longitudes; this sounds like a nightmare of a question on an exam. Data visualizations convey information in an easier format than standard statistics do. A table of numbers is more difficult to comprehend than a 'picture.' Data visualizations allow for a clearer definition of the problem. For example, Hanns demonstrates how to split the statistics from regions to countries to different income levels within each nation. Contextualization is very important and this method of showing data clearly shows how blanket solutions are generally not acceptable approach. In recent years, online reports have started to include interactive data visualizations into reports. On big infrastructure and urban development projects, this type of display for data sets is important to track different project indicators.
The photo above shows recent housing developments adjacent to farmland in Southern Ontario. (Cohen, 2019)
Studying the way people interact with different displays of data helps to better understand how data should be shown. Complex displays may hide the important information even though they look "cool". Data is only useful if it can be understood and conveyed in a clear manner.
The Ngram viewer is a project by Google which shows the number of occurrences of a given word or phrase in literature between the years of 1800 and 2008. Search words like “sustainability”, and “climate change” are virtually non-existent prior to the 1980s. The tool is based on an immense database of OCR work done by Google. The ability to create massive data sets is left to the companies and organization that have the financial backing to make this happen. Data sets are starting to become more openly accessible to the public. Data visualizations are only possible when data is easily accessible and searchable. As Hans Rosling describes in his Ted Talk, Averages are dangerous. We must have a high level of contextualization when we make decisions.
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