More than a 1000 words

More than a 1000 words:scripts and techniques for putting interactivegraphics on webpages.Timothy M. Kunau, MSc: +011 1 612 701 0735e: tkunau@gmail.comw: http://kunau.us/t: @tkunau 1

Data is all over the web 3

... and it is getting more complex over time. 4

Semiology – the study of symbols and signs 7

σημειωτικόςSemioticsFrom the Greek semeiotikos, which means “interpreter of signs”.Signs underly all forms of communication.Anything used for human communication is deﬁned as a sign:gestures, facial expressions, poetry, rituals, clothes, food, music,morse code, color, shape, etc. 8

What is a sign?• Anything that carries meaning - whether it’s a word, a symbol/image, or a sound.• Signs form part of a coded system within media and text http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~rockmore/semaphore.html 9

Trouser Semaphore http://thechap.net/ 10

Everything is a signSigns can be readSigns exist in a structureand context 11

The ability of the audience to decode andunderstand a graphic design becomes a majorlimitation governing its form and content.From Type and Image: The Language of Graphic Design, Philip B. Meggs 12

Semiology of Graphics• Properties of information• Properties of image• Rules mapping information to images• Analytical tasks Jacques Bertin• First and most broad effort (1918-2010) to provide a theoretical foundation for Information Visualization 1967 13

Language Perspective• Semiology – the study of symbol systems• Sender and receiver use a language with symbols • Establish code and conventions • Sender encodes information in these symbols • Receiver decodes information from these symbols 14

• [x,y] • Position• [z] • Shape • Size • Texture • Intensity/Value • Color/Hue • OrientationBertin, J. (1983). Semiology of graphics.Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press. 15

Data will dictate display. 16

Story will dictate display. 17

So, how does this apply to interactive graphics onwebpages?There are some new techniques and tools that take advantage ofJavascript API and HTML5: <canvas>.Bertin’s Semiology of Graphics can help us form the best contextfor our data and the broadest range of receivers. 19

Tools• InfoViz• Raphaël• jQuery Visualize Plugin• Protovis• Processing.js 20

InfoViz• Author: Nicolas Garcia Belmonte• Available: http://thejit.org/• License: GNU GPL v3• Current Release: 2.0.0 - beta• Acquired by Sencha: www.sencha.com 21

InfoViz: joys• Data embedded as JSON objects. (http://json.org)• On-line API doc: http://thejit.org/static/v20/Docs/ﬁles/Core/ Core-js.html• http://groups.google.com/group/javascript-information- visualization-toolkit/topics• Open Source: https://github.com/philogb/jit• 22

InfoViz: demo• President Obamas proposed budget for 2012, • http://www.whitehouse.gov/winning-the-future/interactive-budget 23

InfoViz: concerns• .onClick events and multi-touch and label stacking• Larger graphs can be slow to render and navigate in < IE9.• Larger datasets can produce mixed results (5677 nodes in this example)• Recent purchase by Sencha. Image: http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/nsomnac/5427000353/ 24

Raphaël• Authors: Dmitry Baranovskiy• Available: http://raphaeljs.com/• License: MIT license, http:// raphaeljs.com/license.html 25

Raphaël: joys• Light-weight ﬁle size • Animated transitions*• Less complex than InfoViz and • Multi-touch friendly (ios/webkit) Protovis• Open Source: https://github.com/ DmitryBaranovskiy/raphael/ 26

Raphaël: demo 27

Raphaël: example• Data for this and the previous object is coded into an HTML table, not a JSON object.• Fail-back is useful even when JavaScript is not available. 28

Raphaël: concerns• Not all graph formats fail-back gracefully.• Embedded data relies on cleverness using HTML <table> declarations (like jQuery Visualize plugin) -- clever kills.• Recent purchase by Sencha. 29

jQuery Visualize Plugin• Authors: the Filament Group (the core developers of jQuery UI)• Available: http://dwpe.googlecode.com/ﬁles/dwpe-code-public-latest.zip• License: MIT License 30

jQuery Visualize Plugin:joys• Bases chart on data already in the page in an HTML table element• Fails gracefully• Works with screen-readers• Written by the jQuery UI group, it will likely incorporate support for multi-touch environments• Packaged as a downloadable jQuery plugin called Visualize 31

jQuery Visualize Plugin:demo .addTouch(); .draggable(); 32

jQuery Visualize Plugin: concerns• Small range of possible charts • Multi-touch interaction is buggy• Cleverness (though possibly out- • Work-arounds require third-party weighed by the breadth of the plugins (jPooky, TouchSwipe, et al.) jQuery community) 33

Protovis• Authors: Mike Bostock and Jeff Heer of the Stanford Visualization Group• Available: http://vis.stanford.edu/protovis/• License: BSD License 34

Protovis: joys• JavaScript and SVG • All things to all people.• Mature, v3.2 (881KB) • Interactivity is very good. 35

Protovis: conventional 36

Protovis: maps 37

Protovis: hierarchies 38

Protovis: custom 39

Protovis: statistics Note: if you are really into stats vis, look at R and MATLAB. 40

Protovis: networks 41

Protovis: art 42

Protovis: interactive 43

Demo 44

Protovis: concerns• All things to all people. • Download heavy for handheld devices.• Complexity rises quickly for composition graphs. • No multi-touch support, yet. 45

Processing.js• Authors: Originally developed by Ben Fry and Casey Reas, ported to Javascript by John Resig (the creator of jQuery).• Available: http://processingjs.org/• License: MIT• Version: Release 1.1, available March 1st, 2011.• This is a raster graphics framework. 48

Processing.js: joys• JavaScript port of the Java-based Processing graphics API and language which renders to HTML 5 canvas.• Code using the Processing language, include it in your web page, and Processing.js does the rest• Great for novel visualizations• Active project and communities of users 49

Processing.js: joys• Release 1.1 adds: • Webkit native touch events on webkit browsers and iOS devices • mouseOver and mouseOut events were added to allow events to take place when the user enters and leaves a canvas 50

Processing.js: demo http://askken.heroku.com/ 51

Processing.js: concerns• JAVA-like, in the bad ways too• Raster primitives feel like building with an Erector Set.• You can use JavaScript to write processing code that is translated by Processing.js into HTML5.• Nearly all, though not entirely Processing compatible. The community is working towards a 100% compatible API. 52

What’s next? 53

WebGL 54

http://media.tojicode.com/q3bsp/ 55

http://plumegraph.org/ 56

Limitations of interactive graphics on the web•Sender encodes information in symbols•Receiver decodes information from symbols •Browsers, in all their many forms •Consumers, in all their many forms 57

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Timeline_of_web_browsers.svg 58

[When] you see excellent graphics, ﬁnd out howthey were done. Borrow strength fromdemonstrated excellence. The idea for informationdesign is: Don’t get it original, get it right.—Edward Tufte 60

Interactive analysis should consider• Selection (multi-touch) • Calculation• Filtering • Grouping and Aggregation• Sorting 61

Questions 62

More than a 1000 words:scripts and techniques for putting interactivegraphics on webpages.Thank you!Timothy M. Kunau, MSc: +011 1 612 701 0735e: tkunau@gmail.comw: http://kunau.us/t: @tkunau 63

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More than a 1000 words

by Timothy Kunau on Apr 11, 2011

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