Monday, March 3, 2014

Hans Rosling and José Duarte: Visualization in the real world



Hans Rosling has uploaded a new video in which he visualizes data with objects. It is similar to his explanation of population growth with Ikea boxes. Visualizing data in the real world, and not in a computer screen (or on paper) is not particularly original, as a visit to the Colossal blog or to the Emoto project will reveal. But it's something that I find endearing. Andrew Vande Moere has recently showcased two projects (1, 2) and I've just discovered the work of José Duarte (HandMadeVisuals,) although he's been around for quite a while; Maria Popova has written about him.

Here you have some links: 1, 2, 3. This visualization strategy doesn't allow for complex, deep, dense, or rich graphics, but the results are invariably eye-catching. Below, you can see a comparison of the most popular Twitter accounts and a line chart with the number of Internet users worldwide.