Visualisation and design – new tools to help with information overload

Alice Rawsthorn, design critic at the International Herald Tribune, writes this week on visualisation design, which uses advanced software to illustrate complicated data so that we (that’s the 99.99 percent of us without doctorates in applied mathematics) can understand it.

“Visualization comes in the form of still images, moving ones and three-dimensional models that depict elusive, often abstract phenomena such as the movement of Internet traffic, scientific theories or a city’s emotional landscape.” […]

“There’s one simple reason why visualization is becoming so important, and that’s our desire to understand what’s happening in the world at a time when it’s becoming harder and harder to do so.”

The article is in part based upon conversations with Paola Antonelli (MoMA), as well as Ben Fry and Casey Reas (Processing).

[Casey was a former colleague of mine at Interaction Design Institute Ivrea].

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