So I just have to share my favorite web site with everyone.
It's called GraphJam, and it's billed as a site of "Music and Culture for People Who Love Charts". All of the charts are user-generated, and cover topics as diverse as Clash songs, college student dining, and the relative awesomeness of different kinds of Newtons (fig being the clear winner). When you have some time, and need a good laugh, you can see them for yourself here.
All humor aside, GraphJam is a great example of how visual representations (like charts and graphs) can make complex ideas simple. But creating effective visuals remains a daunting task. It requires a high level of design savvy combined with the ability to derive true insights from unwieldy, unrelated, or poorly defined sets of data.
As an example, check out this site, called Many Eyes. Here users offer up their charts and graphs of huge, oft-times dull, data sets. Word clouds, line graphs, pie charts - they're all here. And for the most part they are all frightfully dry. While they demonstrate some degree of technical wizardry, they offer up none of the joy or cleverness that underlie the GraphJam charts. Unfortunately, they also have more in common with most of the charts we get to see in PowerPoint presentations from our corporate clients.
That's because people forget what these visuals are for. To communicate. To make a point. To share an insight. It can't be data for data's sake. It needs to be information we can act on. Information that supports or contributes to our plan to win.
And when it comes to offering shortcuts to understanding, charts and graphs can be used for far more than just representing data. They can represent business concepts, market positions, weighted communications tactics, and so on. By using design as a strategic tool, you can explore different options and punch through various scenarios quickly, effectively, and affordably.
Knowing how to create such visuals is a unique specialty, and (I'm proud to say) one at which our firm excels. Give us a shout some time, and we'll show you a new way of looking at those old problems!
- Rob (see my page here)
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