Data Visualization Is Reinventing Online Storytelling

And Building Brands in Bits and Bytes

Posted by Garrick Schmitt on 03.19.09 @ 09:30 AM

Garrick Schmitt

Today's consumer seems to have an insatiable appetite for information, but until recently making sense of all of that raw data was too daunting for most. Enter the new "visual scientists" who are turning bits and bytes of data -- once purely the domain of mathematicians and coders -- into stories for our digital age.

Maybe it was the way CNN's John King made sense of the minutiae of delegate data from this past year's election on a giant touch screen, or how Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight parsed polling data -- either way the art of "data visualization" has exploded recently and it is fundamentally changing the way we create and consume narratives about events, products and services.

Google has built a pretty good brand and business off of organizing the world's information, of course. Through its Search, Maps, Trends and Zeitgeist products (to name just a few), Google makes data more accessible to consumers in a meaningful way, all with an eye towards advertising on every byte of it. Google has even -- literally -- pursued this data route to Mars, and has scaled to the moon, sky and ocean, albeit the opportunity for advertising on these newer services is a bit murkier.

Now the mainstream is starting to follow suit:

Publishers: The New York Times, which has always done stunning infographic work, is helping to push data visualization to a mass audience with its "Visualization Lab." The service, created in partnership with IBM, allows users to create visual representations of all sorts of information, such as charts, graphs and maps, and then share and comment. Similarly, the Economist employs data visualization to graphically represent an ongoing conversation as part of its "Debate" series, which enables the user to track the developments and change in sentiment on a daily basis.

Advertisers: Visa, as part of its new "Go" campaign, is integrating data into its advertising. The "Go" microsite features seemingly random bits of data (16,438 people in Paris smiling back at the Mona Lisa) that the user can explore to see how Visa is "helping more people go places and do things." Similarly, the banner ads feature live video streamed from cities (such as Times Square in New York) around the world that show people "going" and utilizes similar data.

Products: Flickr, the online photo-sharing service from Yahoo, just recently released the Flickr Clock a browser -- and very nifty advertisement, actually -- that showcases the videos that users are now able to upload to the site. The videos are graphically displayed in a scrolling timeline that the user controls.

Agencies: The Flickr project was created by Stamen Design, a small San Francisco design studio that has been behind some of the most impressive work in the infographic space. The firm has created the SFMOMA ArtScope project which is a completely interactive and visual browsing tool that makes browsing the 3,500 objects from the museum both immersive and entertaining. The firm also created Oakland Crimespotting, a service that elegantly -- and frighteningly -- maps crimes occurring across the city and enables users to sort through the data in a personally meaningful way (e.g. block-by-block).

Artists: The rock band Radiohead is working to turn data visualization into an art form with its music video, "House of Cards." Using neither cameras nor lights, the band employed two technologies called Geometric Informatics and Velodyne LIDAR to capture 3D data and transform it into a series of stunning images. Radiohead recently opened up the data to the world, in partnership with Google, to remix.

All of this data visualization is, of course, really just a new way to tell stories (or create experiences) out of the very base matter of the web itself. Data visualization is probably not a foreign concept for anyone familiar with the work of information-design pioneer Professor Edward Tufte, but it's the advances in technology at the presentation layer and the new found ability to tap into once hidden data sources that is enabling these new visual scientists to chart a new narrative course.

Now there are two questions that all advertisers, publishers and agencies need to ask of themselves: "What data do you have that is truly valuable?" and "How can you create a meaningful experience or narrative out of it?" The answers, we may find, will become the catalyst for a more authentic way to tell stories in our digital era.

~ ~ ~
Garrick Schmitt is group VP-experience planning at Razorfish and the agency's global lead for User Experience. He publishes FEED, Razorfish's annual consumer experience report, and writes and edits the Razorfish Digital Design Blog. In his spare time he flails about on Twitter @gschmitt. The New York Times, CNN, The Economist and Visa are Razorfish clients.

26 Comments

By Craig_Freedom | new york, NY March 19, 2009 11:43:46 am:

Great article I wrote something similar here: http://webicrat.blogspot.com/2008/05/deity-envisage-from-lascaux-to.html

Data visualization is so prominent now because social data is everywhere, you can pull free data from any number of sources and its always so unique and individual as the people who are submitting it.

We recently did a data visualization project that was very successful in terms of getting original data aggregated from the site: http://demos.freedomandpartners.com/thoughtpile/

I do think that more and more sites utilizing twitter and other data sources will be making headlines this year and we will be more unified as a global collective because of it.

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By craigcooper | craigcooper.com, NY March 19, 2009 11:45:42 am:

Another old thing (graphs) being hyped as a new thing (data visualization) to take advantage of bewildered clients.

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By rmiyaki | New York, NY March 19, 2009 11:56:58 am:

Speaking of Twitter datavisualization, the developers of Google Chrome have created this wonderful visualization that displays how social conversations in Twitter are connected to each other.
http://www.chromeexperiments.com/detail/social-collider/

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By dzeitman | Redwood City, CA March 19, 2009 12:12:17 pm:

Data aggregation is the story of 'then,' as told by an algorithm. Data assimilation is the theory of 'next,' as postulated by a human Successful advertisers, publishers and agencies must master the latter.

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By nickkinports | Chicago, IL March 19, 2009 01:55:53 pm:

A great example of data aggregation to create experience:

Photo aggregation from Flickr creating virtual worlds. Amazing really.

Photosynth from Microsoft Livelabs http://livelabs.com/photosynth/

http://www.twitter.com/admaven

http://admaven.blogspot.com

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By kfliegel | Chicago, IL March 19, 2009 05:19:03 pm:

I'm sorry, this is just not new. Sophisticated data visualizations have been around since the beginning of media on the Internet. The founder of Stamen Design, one of the companies quoted, has been doing this work since the 90s and was a driving force behind ahead-of-its-time media sites like Quokka Sports. Before that, experimental sites like The Remedi Project were pushing the limits of this. Even online newspapers routinely included this kind of presentation in their early efforts. This sounds a little like "Gee whiz, look at the tall buildings."

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By Faris | NYC, NY March 19, 2009 07:14:05 pm:

Word!

Um - yes data visualisation is old - written words are visualisation of sound data. And graphs and that sure.

But something is very, very different now - because of the scale of data points being collected and aggregated [law of large numbers baby], and the beauty with which we can see them.

Sure Stamen have been doing this for a while - but it is now of the moment.

http://farisyakob.typepad.com/blog/2008/06/ways-of-seeing.html

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By jcrglobaladage | Los Angeles, CA March 19, 2009 07:59:18 pm:

I have been tracking (and in some cases using) some of the tools you mention. I actually did a similar thing with zip code files before computers to show geographic representation. However, my point is that people should look at the works of Edward Tufte, formerly a Yale professor who wrote some of the best books on the visualization principles.

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By luckylou | Seattle, WA March 19, 2009 08:28:16 pm:

Well put, Faris: it is now of the moment.

We've been collecting so much data that has languished untouched or underused, and certainly under-realized for so long due to a lack of creative ways to get true meaning out of it. And the more data the more overwhelming the task to make sense of it all.

Traditional charts and spreadsheets fail to evoke urgency, meaning, and impact, ultimately failing to reach real people and do the one thing we need: elevate us from abstract, large-scale data dumps to another plane of understanding that makes a real connection and prompts action and emotion.

These new ways of assimilating variable data from diverse sources into sensible and relatable visual representations are not just entertaining, they are immediately relevant tools which can spur previously unrealized results.

The MoMa in Manhattan recently featured a fascinating display of new media in which several of the exhibited pieces used similar techniques to produce displays of data that were considered works of art not just for their simple aesthetic appearance but also because of the artistic impact brought by the new level of appreciation for the meaning contained within. Brooklyn crime/jail migration maps and US flight paths and timings dazzled the eye as high art in part because they were presented as moving, vivid, visualiztions but more so because they conveyed tremendous information without presenting a single digit or letter of text.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, so yes, a little of the "look at the tall buildings" effect that Fliegel just commented on, but just wait. There is so much more and right around the corner. Coming from a different angle, Business Intelligence enterprise apps are all ramping up their dashboard capabilities at an impressive clip, making sense of enterprise data for executives. And OS improvements like Apple's CoreGraphics in OS X combined with hardware improvements in graphics chips bring heretofore unseen power to the desktop. As these technologies converge with internet data connectivity and XML-formatted availability, we're due to see some amazing output in the near future. As Garrick evidenced in his linked examples, exceptional creativity is more than at the ready.

I'll be watching carefully to see what's next.

http://twitter.com/luckylou

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By gschmitt | San Francisco, CA March 20, 2009 12:50:05 am:

Thanks for all of your insightful comments/critiques. Clearly I'm a fan of Faris' "Word" comment ;)

It is true that creating infographics is not new, but creating a living/breathing interfaces that tells stories based on the enormous amount of data now at our fingertips is -- and it's a heck of a lot easier to do in '09 vs. '99.

For those who are really interested, there are a couple of great resources that aggregate some of the best data visualization work. My favorites are Flowing Data, Information Aesthetics and Processing.org.

Thanks again -- Garrick.

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By tereneta | Berkeley, CA March 20, 2009 01:10:34 am:

Data visualization may be becoming more ubiquitous (due to the growth in data available)-- but where's the application to storytelling? Remixing data to increase understanding or engagement may be good for business, and it may make your site the cool internet phenomena of the month, it may even lead to game-changing models for business, science, or civic engagement.

If I can remix a music video, or see crime in my neighborhood, or get a map of twitter conversations' interconnections, or explore my local museum's collection in a whole new way, cool. I can waste more time on the internet.

But just because I'm engaged with your data doesn't mean you've rewritten the rules of narrative.

http://storytelling.blogspot.com

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By RICK | PITTSBURGH, PA March 20, 2009 09:34:30 am:

I agree with Craig Cooper re: the bewildered clients. Clients are looking for agencies to keep things simple for them -- 'help me make sense of it all in a way that is "board ready".' Data Visualization is not new. But advances in client side technologies are making it possible for agencies to help the bewildered client make sense of all of the new metrics sprouting up every day. - Rick Gardinier | brunnerworks.com, PA

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By PAllen | WARRENVILLE, IL March 20, 2009 10:01:42 am:

Garrick, as consultants to financial services marketers, we couldn't agree more with you about the need to become expert in telling stories with data. We've seen the virtual success of visualizations created to explain the financial crisis and have repeatedly urged our clients to develop this competency.

A couple of additional links to share:

A Marketing Edge podcast about the emergence of the visual Web with Jason Falls at South by Southwest--http://bit.ly/mpmdI

A collection of 27 visualizations about the financial crisis--http://bit.ly/hIFje

A financial weather map best practice from the asset management industry--http://bit.ly/vwzbG

Finally, our blog posts on visualizations http://bit.ly/PqOSE

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By stevenstark | Fairfield, CT March 20, 2009 10:03:18 am:

Some great examples of how we are making sense of the incredible amount of data we have in an increasingly visual world. Thanks for putting this together.
www.stevenstark.net

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By bmini | Newton, MA March 20, 2009 10:51:33 am:

Love the way the go.visa.com site uses data. But conceptually? Well, see our home page: ismboston.com

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By Allen | Mill Valley, CA March 20, 2009 01:36:03 pm:

Data visualization is a great way to make sense of complex ideas. And sometime, it's just fun. This is a site I created that visualizes the blogsphere:
http://allenmeyerdesign.com/webmood/

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By DKE | Toronto, ON March 22, 2009 01:30:59 pm:

We are compiling stories from around the world on how people belong in a fragmented 2.0 world and then visualizing those stories through Google mapping.
http://tinyurl.com/dbt9lj

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By vsdave | LOUISVILLE, KY March 23, 2009 10:10:00 am:

There is no doubt data visualization has been something people have been doing for years in various forms. However, with technologies such as Flash (along with some new ones on the horizon), the way we go about displaying this data is very unique and can be very engaging. I don't feel that this is taking advantage of bewildered clients, it is empowering them with new methodologies that blow conventional charts and graphs out of the water.

With all of our access to data now, through APIs and such, the future is going to spin things in a far more exciting manner. Even kids may like looking at data. Take it from me, I am of course a visual scientists. http://www.visualscientists.com

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By whitneymathews | Overland Park, KS March 23, 2009 10:37:07 am:

I think visualizing data is a fantastic way to tell a digital story. Long sets of numbers can be overwhelming, but if you put them in a dynamic map, it's much easier to pick out the important parts and draw conclusions.

I think the keys to accurate visualization are 1) the gatekeepers - the software or method you use to visualize data and 2) the storytellers - the people who can look at these pictures and write the story. Not everyone has that talent.

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By MATSNL65 | LOS ANGELES, CA March 23, 2009 09:11:36 pm:

The thing we who deal with designing information, whether we are digital interactive designers or offline display information designers is that information requires us to give it deeper context that supports how human beings actually perceive their environments. We have the tools that allows for us to tell as story through movement and time... to connect deeper abstract meanings with symbols and pictographs.. to touch on emotions with color and tone, and to invite participation with interaction and responsiveness. For the thinker, what better design challenge than to solve any and often all of those needs that designing information offers. When done well... it communicates effectively.... it emotes as art does.

http://www.twitter.com/MATSNL65/

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By smagniant | Washington, DC April 12, 2009 03:24:14 pm:

Interesting references in the comments thread. To add to the list, I would also recommend reading P. Sheldrake's good column last year on this topic, called "Can you see it? Making influence visible" http://www.marcomprofessional.com/posts/philip.sheldrake/can-you-see-it-making-influence-visible/19861

And btw, we're having a related discussion over here on web maps and "the virtual geography of buzz". More opinions needed: http://kdpaine.blogs.com/themeasurementstandard/2009/04/the-virtual-geography-of-buzz-mapping-the-viral-web.html

Stan

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By jkrawl | Chicago, IL August 1, 2009 02:00:44 pm:

I do agree with some of the commentors that data visualization has been in application for quite some time, but in a foundational & general sense. Since we're living in a digital era saturated with so much data & information, technology will always be evolving with methods for making sense of all of the unique information around us. Data visualization is just a creative and non-ordinary means of absorbing details about common functions, activities, processes, or stories in an appealing & insightful manner. With all of the social media web 2.0 interactions constantly being added to the data pool, along with major advances in technology, we're due for some amazing & unorthodox ways of outputting information.

Frank
http://www.absrocketpro.com

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By BPoston | Raleigh, NC August 7, 2009 07:48:58 pm:

I think that this is just another step in the evolution of individualization of websites. The idea of making everything uniques to everyone - customization to the one. Sure it makes for good entertainment (although I didn't like the Radio Head video that much) what it has the ability to do is keep the visitor "stuck to the page"

Ben
http://www.howtobuildgolfclubs.com

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By jimi_R | New York, NY August 17, 2009 01:14:45 am:

The thing we deal with the designing information that require us to dig deeper context information that supports human being, for digital interactive or offline display information designers. its really interesting!!

jimi
http://www.buildingmaintenanceoftoday.com/

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By gmiddleton | Indiana, PA August 21, 2009 09:48:51 am:

I think it's great to see how these commercials, music videos, etc, have been changing over the years. Back in the 80's the musical group A-Ha had a hit with the song "Take on Me". Even to this day, the video is amazing to watch and for being made over two decades ago is even more incredible.

A couple of years ago, Denzel Washington starred in the movie "Déj� vu", which utilized mapping to see where people were at any given point of time. There are even scenes of spying on people in the privacy of their own homes. This concept is not too far fetched with today's technology and its some pretty scary stuff when you think about it...

Best,

Gaston
http://www.Ultimate-Resell-Rights.com

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By dmilliken | Raleigh, NC October 8, 2009 01:17:24 pm:

@Craig Cooper: Your comment is spot on. As a web developer and marketer, I've had to learn to communicate complex concepts (say that five times fast) to "bewildered" clients, and the best way to do that is through "data visualization", only I still call it "graphs and charts".

Danielle
http://www.vacuumcleanersforpethair.com/

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