Manual Lima's Information Visualization Manifesto & Discussion on the Visual Complexity Blog: Interaction Supporting Analysis is Key

Manual Lima, author of the Visual Complexity blog, set out to write about a set of considerations or requirements for people working in the field of Information Visualization, and outlined these goals in his Information Visualization Manifesto (8/30/0).  Lima's post spurred quite a discussion among his readers, and resulted in a subsequent post,  Observations on the Manifesto.  

My favorite section of the manifesto:

"Interactivity is Key"

"As defined by Ben Shneiderman, Stuart K. Card and Jock D. Mackinlay, “Information Visualization is the use of computer-supported, interactive, visual representations of abstract data to amplify cognition”. This well-known statement highlights how interactivity is an integral part of the field’s DNA.  Any Information Visualization project should not only facilitate understanding but also the analysis of the data, according to specific use cases and defined goals. By employing interactive techniques, users are able to properly investigate and reshape the layout in order to find appropriate answers to their questions. This capability becomes imperative as the degree of complexity of the portrayed system increases. Visualization should be recognized as a discovery tool."

Manual Lima also suggests that narrative is an important component, and quotes Patricia McDonald: "...the question of narrative seems to lie at the heart of this Manifesto; the need to pose a specific question of the data and to weave coherent themes and stories from it."

Also read:
Observations on the Manifesto 9/3/09

In this post, Manual Lima reflects on the discussion surrounding his 8/30 post.  Regarding his statement, "Interactivity is Key":

"This principle merits the reflection of us all. Jerome Cukier and David McCandless challenged the need for interactivity in Information Visualization. In a broader definition of Visualization I would certainly agree with this notion: Information can be successfully conveyed in either static or interactive mediums. However, we have to question what really sets us apart from other parallel fields such as Information Design or Information Graphics. I do believe one of the crucial benefits of Information Visualization is interactivity – which also explains why this area emerged from Computer Science and HCI. It’s this “computer-supported, interactive” visual representation of data that truly makes us different. And this unique offering “becomes imperative as the degree of complexity of the portrayed system increases”. The representation of complex networks is just an instance where interactivity should be mandatory."

Lima goes on to discuss the diversity of the field, as it is comprised of people from a variety of disciplines. However, he sees a difference between Information Visualization and Information Art.


"The fallacy of Information Visualization being a conveyor of “pretty pictures” is drastically threatening the field, by undermining its goals and expectations. “We have to fight that or risk the trivialization and marginalization of visualization as an analytic tool”, asserts Robert Kosara on a recent review of the manifesto."

RELATED:

Robert Kosara's Post:  Shaking the "Pretty Picture" Stigma  8/31/09

Kosara points out that visual analysis is a better term to use than visualization, among other things.


"The purpose of visualization is insight, not pictures"  Ben Shneiderman (1999)

More Multi-touch: Packard Bell's Viseo 200T Touch Edition; oneTwo M and L All-In-One; MSI's HD AE2400

More multi-touch!


Packard Bell Press Release: oneTwo M and oneTwo L press release (pdf)


"The use of multi-touch technology is expected to rapidly expand because it provides a fast and
intuitive interface for the user. In fact, it is not meant for computer literate or techno-maniacs, it’s addressing users who want easy-to-use and complete digital solutions, who love unique and expressive style.The Packard Bell oneTwo Series gathers all these needs into an all-in-one PC with easy-to-use touch-screen technology, eye-catching style, and fantastic entertainment and media sharing."

Packard Bell Press Release:  Viseo 200 Touch and enjoy! (pdf)

The MSI promotional video shows some interesting touch-screen interaction with the media. I'm not sure how much of this video is special effects!



MSI had a contest for people to create and share their videos to promote the benefits of touch screens over traditional PC's. Here's the promo for the contest:



The videos can be seen on the MSI contest website or on YouTube.

It is rumored that MSI will be releasing a multi-touch all-in-one sometime in the future, the MSI AE2400.


I haven't had a chance to test out any of these computers.  If you have had the opportunity, please leave a comment.

I'm hoping that there will be an influx of great touch and multi-touch applications in the future.  Multi-touch web browsers exist, but are only in the experimental phase, as far as I know, and most web-sites are not optimized for even single-touch interaction.

William Forsythe's "Synchronous Objects - One Flat Thing, Reproduced." Multidisciplinary online interactive project: Translating choreography into new forms.

 If you are interested in keeping up with ways various disciplines are converging, take the time to learn about the process behind the Synchronous Objects, One Flat Thing, Reproduced project.

This project was a product of a collaboration between choreographer William Forsythe and a multi-disciplinary group of researchers from Ohio State University's Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design (ACCAD).

The online installation of this project is an interactive website. The site demonstrates how the project's team members explored "discipline-specific and cross-disciplinary ways of seeing." and focused on "visualizing choreographic structure from dance to data to objects".

Synchronous Objects Interactive Site
"...the project presents an original collection of screen-based visualizations (video, digital artwork, animation, and interactive graphics) that reveal interlocking systems of organization in the choreography. The project aims to appeal to a broad public from diverse fields including but not limited to dance. Forsythe explains, “The project starts from the recognition that choreography is an organizational practice that employs fundamental creative strategies relevant to many other domains.”(The link above leads to the website- be sure to watch the video introduction before entering the site.)
Overview/Teamwork

To view flash video, this browser needs the Flash 8 (or higher) plug-in

Each discipline involved in the project discussed what they saw in the dance.. Their contributions to the project were amazing.  For example, a geographer took data from the dance and translated it into a geographical plane, to describe the use of space:

A video dance scoring system was utilized:  Full Video Score

Cue Visualizer tool
"The Cue Visualizer is an interactive tool in which users can view the cue system, in One Flat Thing, reproduced, over time."

Synchronous Objects Project Gallery

William Forsythe's Essay:  Choreographic Objects
"When the blind mathematician Bernard Morin was asked where the imaging of the process of everting a sphere existed in his imagination, he famously replied: "Nowhere and everywhere at the same time." And so it is with the choreographic object: it is a model of potential transition from one state to another in any space imaginable."
Project Team Member's Quotes
Video Introduction
All Credits:   Synchronous Objects Project, The Ohio State University and The Forsythe Company
RELATED

"The main focus of Synchronous Objects is to develop a set of data visualization tools for capturing, analyzing and presenting the underlying choreographic structures and components of Forsythe's "One Flat Thing, reproduced" (OFTr), which premiered in 2000. These visualizations in the form of information graphics, 2D and 3D animations and visual dance scores will provide audiences, students and researchers with new approaches to thinking about and studying Forsythe's intricate, counter-point work." - Doug Fox, Great Dance

Overview of Pacific Northwest Ballet's performance of One Flat Thing, Reproduced



From Daily Motion: One Flat Thing Reproduced, ARTE France production:

One flat thing reproduced 1
by maneb40

One flat thing reproduced 2
by maneb40

Transcript of the Teamwork video:
Chuck Helm: Bill received the Wexner Prize in 2002. One of the intents of the Wexner Prize was that this not just be a one-time occasion, that these might be people who would come back to OSU and have further involvement with both the Wexner Center and with campus, and in this case, it's really borne fruit.

We're doing this exhibition of Bill's installation and his video-related work that show his idea of how he's extending choreographic thinking into new forms such as video as well as a sculptural installation and also a performance installation as well as a whole section devoted to the new web project he developed at OSU as well as material that relates to the evolution of that web project.

Maria Palazzi: We have had this opportunity with the Synchronous Objects project to bring together a group of students who come from different disciplines like computer science, design, dance, art, working together to understand what their disciplines bring to a project like this but also to come to an understanding of what other disciplines might bring to their work.

Norah Zuniga Shaw: For dancers, we'd like to communicate better about what we do, so we feel it's important to make ourselves more readable. But I also think knowing about how motion works, knowing about complex event perception, analyzing the complexity in this dance is relevant for thinking critically about visual literacy in this new century that we're in.

Palazzi: When we started to talk to Bill about the project we said, "Who is audience?" and the answer was "Everybody." So we thought about what it was we needed to do to communicate with everybody and I think this idea of solving a lot of this communication through visuals, using algorithmic techniques, using computer graphics, using animation. These are very contemporary ways in which young people are used to seeing information and they're very effective ways to take lots of information and translate it so they're understandable.

William Forsythe: This is research into a kind of a proto literature for dance, where other people could look at a dance as it plays out on a video and with these annotations overlaid upon them, could we understand very quickly what this dance was or how it was organized and what they're thinking about it, so that dance wasn't so frightening. Which is where you hear people going, "Oh, I don't want to go to see the dance, I don't understand dance." And we're like, "You just don't know how to look at it. Of course you understand it." And we've had the wonderful experience now showing people these annotations and people say literally within second, "Oh, I get it," and you're going, like, "Voila."

Helm: This has been the first time that there's been a significant showing of Bill's installation works in this country, and particularly a body of his work that can be shown at a place like OSU, which is also sponsoring the development of this new web project. So it kind of shows the important resources that a major university can bring for an artist like Bill. It's not everyplace you go to that can say, "Yes, we can do this full range of activity."

Palazzi: I think he was attracted to ACCAD and the Department of Dance because of this unique collaboration that we have between our research center and dance. I think that is one of the advantages of a big university like Ohio State: We have lots of expertise on our campus. One of the things that ACCAD serves as, is an umbrella or a gathering place for multidisciplinary approaches to problems.

Forsythe: OSU is a no brainer because the Dance Department and ACCAD are connected. I don't know where else that exists. It turned out OSU had everything in place that I needed. So, what's very interesting is that it's this issue of research is that no one was trying to define the way things should be, everyone's saying, "Well, what else could this look like?" So there was this wonderful feeling of a palate of opportunities that's being offered. That was very, very relaxing.

Thanks to Celine Latulipe for the link!

Kindlelab Project: Opensource & 3D Immersive Educational Tools

For more information and links about KindleLab, see the "KindleLab Project" post on the TechPsych blog.

Off topic: Interesting motivational video clip: "If you never failed, you never lived". (Do you know who is sitting in your classrom?)

Good motivational video clip: "If you never failed, you never lived" (Do you know who is sitting in your classroom?)





(cross-posted on the TechPsych blog)

The Future of Interactive Technology: Links to VentureBeat's series of articles

Put your finger on it: The future of interactive technology
Matt Marshall, 8/12/09

"Touch" technology for desktop computing finally taking off
Al Monro (CEO, NextWindow) 8/28/09



Speech, touchscreen--been there, done that. What's the user interface of tomorrow?
9/2/09 Mary Czerwinski (Microsoft)

How phones emerged as main computing devices, and why user interface will improve
Andrew Hsu (Synaptics) 8/24/09

SOMEWHAT RELATED

Playing Tetris could be good for your brain, study says




Mind Research Network
BRAIN IMAGING SHOWS PLAYING TETRIS LEADS TO BOTH BRAIN EFFICIENCY AND THICKER CORTEX

"Over a three-month period, adolescent girls practiced Tetris, a computer game requiring a combination of cognitive skills. The girls who practiced showed greater brain efficiency, consistent with earlier studies. Compared to controls, the girls that practiced also had a thicker cortex, but not in the same brain areas where efficiency occurred."

"We showed that practice on a challenging visuospatial task has an impact on the structure of the cortex, which is in keeping with a growing body of scientific evidence showing that the brain can change with stimulation and is in striking contrast with the pervasive and only-recently outmoded belief that our brain’s structure is fixed,” said Dr. Sherif Karama, a co-investigator at the Montreal Neurological Institute. This study, published in the open-access journal BMC Research Notes, is one of the first to investigate the effects of practice in the brain using two imaging techniques. The girls completed both structural and functional MRI scans before and after the three-month practice period, as did girls in the control group who did not play Tetris. A structural MRI was used to assess cortical thickness, and a functional MRI was used to assess efficient activity."