The best way to learn about visualization is to make them, the same way that people learned about typography and desktop publishing. The results where not that good in the beginning but now people have gotten good at it. With visualization you take boring and dry information and make sense out of it so that it’s easier to understand and for people to gain an interest in it. It’s a different way of conveying information and grabbing people’s attention. The example is of the data software created by Aaron Koblin showing the flight patterns of planes, it’s one thing to say that there are 140,000 planes in the air above us, but to see it is another thing.
We have a significant data problem and that’s not going away. In media, the New York Times is always pushing the envelope when it comes to data visualization. People may not think of charts as data visualization but they are really the first infographs. You have about four to five seconds to capture the attention of your audience so you have to make sure that your data visualization is on point.