Where is the line?

The topic of anti-sublime vs sublime within visualizations is a long debate that I believe doesn't have an answer yet. It like the discussion of what is art? Something that can be argued but only can be answered within a certain amount of rules to restrict the broad definition. But for this response I am going to discuss my own feeling towards the topic of anti-sublime vs sublime within visualizations.

Coming from a computer science background I want to agree that anti-sublime is better. In my User Interface class my professor put strong emphases on "you can have the best program in the world. It can compute faster then any computer program and tell you all the information you want. It can have over a billion functions but if the user is unable to use it, then by default it is the worse program because all that power it has, can't be used." I do believe this does transfer over to visualizations for you can have all the information you want that shows and proves a very interesting point, it can be as beautiful as you want but if the user can't understand it, then the whole visualization is useless.

Here is a harsh review on visualization

http://eagereyes.org/criticism/visualization-can-never-be-art

At the same time I like what sublime does to a visualizations. It shows you information in these abstract interesting ways. These method that put emphases on elements that normally wouldn't be seen in an anit-sublime visualization. In a sense it shows you multiple meaning to a single visualization, and allows the user to experience the visualization in their own way. Which is better then just showing a visualization and saying "THIS IS THE POINT, THERE NO WAY YOU CAN MISUNDERSTAND BECAUSE I PUT LABELS EVERYWHERE". Its not aesthetically pleasing.

The question still stands, how can we find a mid point between anti-sublime and sublime. How can we make a visualization that is aesthetically pleasing without clouding all the information, or making it to abstract.

Personality this problem came up during my assignment 1. How can I make a visualization that is easy to read, looks appealing but doesn't confuse the user with to much information. I hope I made some right choices that will be discussed tomorrow in class. 

As to the topic, I am still unsure where the common line is between these two methods. Hopefully by the end of this course, I will understand more of the sublime for I do see my work being more anti-sublime.

Design statement for Assignment 1

Gaming has always  had an influence in my life, in fact the only reason I became a programmer is because of gaming. I've always wondered the mechanics behind a game and saw what was possible with code. Unlike the world we live in, with code we can create or recreate almost anything and this is anywhere from a building to universes that are populated with people. 

I have discovered in 2010 I signed up to a website called "raptr", I will provide a link below. This website keeps tracks of which games you played, how many hours you played each game and separates the games into genres. After going through all the hours and games, I noticed that I have spent over 1000 hours in front of a screen every year, seem crazy but if you think about it, that is only 2 hours a day for 1 year. 

Since visualization was the whole point of this project, I wanted to have a design that was simple. Something that didn't over complicate the data that was being shown. How to show a data set with the variables; year, games, hours and genres. When I think of games, I can pictures the games that are sitting in my room, piled on top of one another due to the fact that I don't have book ends. They looks like a stacked bar graph and normally would be in alphabetical order if I wasn't in a hurry to play a game.

Kinda looks like this:

The issue with a stack bar graph is that it's hard to put it on the screen, it has to be at the bottom for the graph is getting stacked upwards. The only fix to that solution is to make it upside down. This way I can put it to the top of the screen where a person eyes are naturally drawn. 

I made the games randomize there position because the stacks in my rooms are always different.

The point to this dataset was to see which games I played the most and what genres they fall under. The legend at the bottom of the screen shows which colour is what genres and when you click on either the genre in the legend or a game, it will grey out every genre except the one that you click. This way the user can clearly see how many hours I have played a genre and how it has changed over the years. 

To add further detail when you hover over a game, at the bottom of the screen it will show the hours I have played as well as the game title. Furthermore the game that you hover over will turn white in all years. This way you can compare the amount of hours I have played over the three year. In the picture below you can see in 2010 (which is were my cursor is) that I only played 50 hour of Minecraft. But in 2011 and 2012 you can see I have spend more time on the game.

After graphing this data a question did stand that I would like to solve. What does this all mean? When looking at the data, the obvious is that I used to play more shooters in the past, then I do now.What does that mean? 

After some digging, I found an article by Richard Bartle  that goes into gamers Personality types (Gamification Process and Game Design.) I will go into this during my presentation because this blog is meant only to explain my design choices.

Here is my project for those who want to see it.

Citation:

. ratr. http://raptr.com/ (accessed February 6, 2013).

Gamification, "Personality Types." Accessed February 7, 2013. http://www.gamification.org/wiki/Personality_Types.

Richard, Bartle. "HEARTS, CLUBS, DIAMONDS, SPADES: PLAYERS WHO SUIT MUDS." . http://www.mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm (accessed February 7, 2013).

Data Visualization

At the top of the screen there will be 4 years in which you can switch between. There are going to be two scenes to my data visualization, rain and snow. You can switch in between the two visualization by clicking the rain droplet on the side. (It will turn into a snow flake when displaying the rain graphs). Both scenes will display similar elements, which are the top and bottom banner, the snow/ rain that will be displaying in the background and some sort of object (a snowman here) that will display the measurement of the snow/ rain (in mm). 

The following variables will be displayed in the graph:

The mm in snow- The snowman height/fatness and also as a safe measure the sign that it carries.

The percentage of snow within the given month (compared to the whole year) - the snow fall will either be greater or non existing depending on the percentage of snow to the over all scale.]

The snowman smile- this also relates to the amount of snow fall. The hotter it is the sadder the snow man. 

The month that you are currently in will be displayed by the green bar that will move across the screen. While the bar is in a certain month the snowman will walk around. In which it will transition it weight and height slowly as the bar gets to the new month. The font that I am using will be "Chalkduster".

Here are my data in typical bar graph forms. 

Changing Topic

That awkward moment when you realize that you didn't post an important blog.

I am changing my idea/concept for Assignment 1 to the weather in Canada and its changes from 2008 to 2011. I wanted to show the changes till 2013 up to date, but that data is not released yet. The reason I changed was because my idea was to broad and the information was very hard to calculate(to many variables)/ come by.

Over the years I have noticed that the weather has been acting not to the norm. (Yes you can calm global warming).An Example is this year, where we are starting to get snow at the end of jan/ beginning of feb. It will probability stay cold till march and I wouldn't be surprised if it goes till April(normally spring months).

I would like to graph these results and see if there's a pattern to be seen. 

Environment Canada, "Monthly Data Report for 2008." Last modified Novemeber 29 2012. Accessed January 29, 2013. http://climate.weatheroffice.gc.ca/climateData/monthlydata_e.html?Prov=ON&StationID=5097&timeframe=3&Year=2008&cmdB2=Go&Month=1&Day=1.