Tuesday 29 October 2013

Data Visualization and Statistics

In spite of my fondness for words, I also can’t get enough of great infographs.  Their effectiveness is well-documented (here, for instance, is a great example – an infograph about infographs! http://visual.ly/13-reasons-your-brain-craves-infographics?view=true), but I think that the reason I like them is because they seem to occupy a middle ground between completely removed learning (for example, reading about history in a book), and more experiential learning (for example, learning about history through being able to physically interact with artifacts from the time period).  While you can’t really reach out and touch infographs, they do provide a way to absorb information more directly, and in a way that seems to stick in the brain.  Even if the information that’s being communicated is complex, I seem to have an easier time remembering it when I picture the (often simple) graphic. 

Here are a couple of my favourites:



Statistics also seem to have been embraced by the internet in the form of popular blogs.  And I must admit, I often find myself procrastinating by casually clicking through lists like this one: http://www.cracked.com/photoplasty_550_16-shocking-statistics-youll-wish-were-made-up/.   Statistics, by their very nature, tend to be somewhat shocking, but I’m almost starting to feel like I’ve become desensitized to a lot of statistics, as a result of their ubiquity on the internet. 

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