My first reaction after watching this video…animated data visualization is SO cool! I have seen many websites that incorporate some type of interactive chart, but I never really thought about how extensive and exciting this field really is. I think what I like most about the animated infographics is that it combines creativity and design skills with logic and coding skills – it becomes a kind of puzzle, to get the visualization part to be aesthetically pleasing and informative as well as the animation component to allow the user to sort through the data. The biggest take-away that I got about data visualization was that it needs to tell a story. There are so many pretty looking charts and graphs out that, but many do not tell a story. Yes, they look really great, but they don’t do their job and visually tell an audience about a certain topic. I really liked the first infographic that illustrated air traffic over North America for 24 hours. It was not only very visually appealing, but also allowed me to understand the data much better than if I would have seen that same information displayed in a graph, in paragraph form, or even in a simple excel chart.
When Amanda Cox began talking about interactive data visualization as her job, that is when I really became excited about this field…I could possible do this as a career too! She takes information that is already available to the public and not only translates it into something that is easy to read and digest the information, but she also changes it into a creation that makes the user stop and think about the data being presented. I think this allows the user to then really absorb the data that is being thrown at him/her. The animation/interactive part is really interesting because it allows for sorting of data based on some sort of category…and makes it easy for the user to process the information because it is not thrown at him/her all at once (it may be hidden a click or two away). The designer chooses the important information to display and the users can then draw their own conclusions.