: edward tufte – minister of information
I would imagine that most people coming to this post/site would not need any introduction on Edward Tufte. Visit that link if you do need one, or listen below for a great interview aired on the radio program On The Media this weekend from NPR.
Tufte continues his crusade for efficient, clean, and rich display of information. Those familiar with him, his books, and seminars know the spiel. I especially love this – he claims that the human eye-to-brain system is so powerful that in a one second glance, 120 megabits of information is processed by our brain. There is no reason to clog that process up or hinder it in any way with meaningless junk. That’s an important principal to remember when designing interfaces. Not always possible or even advisable when designing marketing or brand experiences, but that is a debate to be had at some other point.
This time, Tufte has been brought on by the Obama administration to help design Recovery.gov. The White House appointed him to make sure the government can clearly communicate where all our money is going. The site is still a work in progress, but it does fill me with confidence knowing that someone cares this much about it.
The site has a nice clean look, but it is a bit cluttered at this point. Maybe a redesign is in the works? In the meantime search by zip code for information on how stimulus money is being spent in your community. Pretty cool to be able to track this kind of thing. Typically, you just imagine our tax dollars going to 500 dollar toilet seat covers for the pentagon. Seems to be real accountability at work here. Imagine if we had this type of thing to track where our money went in invasion of Iraq? I believe there are still $12 billion in cash unaccounted for.
: visualizations
If you have worked with me, you know I am into this stuff. I am always looking for ways for us to use it in our projects or even new examples that serve as inspiration for our work. I still keep some hope alive for one particular concept we presented from over a year ago. We’ll see what happens.
The company Bestiaro out of Barcelona does some amazing work in this field. They are dedicated to creating and expanding this new narrative form by harnessing the seemingly endless amount of data now found in humanity’s ever growing digital databases. It’s impossible for a person to look at a database and understand it, but when you form the data into visuals you start to create a language, to communicate, and maybe even a new form of narrative for delivering vital information or even just everyday news.
It takes a special kind of designer to do this. One that is comfortable with; information design, the fundamentals of graphic design, and interaction principals. Visit Bestiaro to see some of these amazing examples.
Also, head on over to VisualComplexity.com for lots amazing examples. This is more of a curated collection of visualizations from all over the world. Many of the examples are strikingly beautiful. They border on the edge of being described as generative art. Information can be beautiful.
This one below caught my attention. It shows the remotest places on the planet. It does this by calculating travel time, nearest city, access to roads or mass transportation, and even things like terrain steepness. See it here.
