This document discusses the benefits of dynamic data visualization for making sense of large amounts of information. It notes that humans have limited attention, time and domain knowledge, making it difficult to analyze data through serial searching alone. Dynamic visualization allows people to leverage preattentive processing to detect patterns, similarities and anomalies in parallel. The document provides examples of how visualization can be used to gain insight from numbers, words and personal data, aiding in tasks like decision making, planning, discovery and description. It advocates for designing visualizations that are fun and engaging to use.

1. Innovative Interfaces Transforming data into insight Eva Kaniasty [email_address] May 2008

2. The age of Dynamic Visualization

3. Why? Limited attention Limited time Limited domain knowledge

4. Serial (Attentive) Search Limited Working Memory capacity Limited Serial Processing capacity

5. It’s WM(d?), stupid *This was a hoax

6. What’s a graph? Dictionary.com: A diagram representing a system of connections or interrelations among two or more things by a number of distinctive dots, lines, bars, etc.

7. Parallel (Preattentive) Search Similarity Proximity Salience/Pop-out Closure/Continuity Symmetry/Alignment Figure/Ground Groupings Comparisons Patterns Gestalt

8. Discriminability & Attention Motion Detection Change Detection Color (especially for red, yellow, green, and blue) Size/Length Orientation Brightness

9. Mapping data to image Variable Length (distinguishable steps) Data Types Numerical (Ranked or Continuous) Nominal (Categorical) Green M, “Toward a Perceptual Science of Multidimensional Data Visualization: Bertin and Beyond.”

10. Good Graph vs. Bad Graph

11. What’s the question? What should I do? What should I choose? What should I buy? What would I like? What if?

12. What book should I read next? Really? Gratuitous Graph

13. Visualizing Numbers Visualizing Words Visualizing Identity

14. Visualizing Numbers

15. Where is all my money going?

16. Analysis Mint.com

17. Prediction NYT.com

18. Planning Limited Domain Knowledge No fun

19. Planning Fidelity myPlan

20. Backcasting

21. Visualizing Words

22. Secondary Organizers The Daily Show

23. Salience Newsmap

24. Exploration/Discovery LivePlasma

25. Graph as user interface Navigation Overview + Detail Direct Manipulation Immediate Feedback

26. Visualizing Identity

27. Un-satisficing

28. Satisficing

29. Mental Shortcuts iStorez.com

30. Personas Buzzilions

31. Structuring the Subjective Buzillions

32. Applications Decision-making Comparing Planning Predicting Discovering Detecting Patterns Describing Relationships Exploring

33. The last word: Funology