michelle li » data

Correlation or Causation?

admin — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 20:18:51 +0000

Here’s a really amusing illustration of how you can prove misleading statements by simply putting 2 graphs together. I especially loved Fig. 6.

via Fast Company

The World’s Best Countries

admin — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 15:57:45 +0000

Newsweek provides a fascinating interactive visualization that compares the rankings of the world’s best countries by economy, politics, health, and quality of life.

Locals vs Tourists

admin — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 17:13:07 +0000

The places people experience in a city differ depending on whether they are tourists or locals. Mapping geo-tagged photographs illustrate the distinction between tourist shots (red) and local shots (blue) in Montreal. These maps tell a narrative of one’s journey through a city through either the eyes of a local or tourist, highlighting the varied points of interest of each group. And indeed, they are usually quite representative of people’s expected patterns of movement. More city maps here.

Source: Urban Photo

Cost & Effects of the BP Oil Spill

admin — Thu, 06 May 2010 17:10:58 +0000

Interesting visualization of the tragic oil spill.

via VisualEconomics

Also, check out Boston.com’s The Big Picture for imagery of the devastation.

Charting the Beatles

admin — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 22:56:14 +0000

Charting the Beatles is an ongoing project exploring the music by the Beatles through infographics. The series of visualizations take data from secondary sources like sales statistics, biographies, recording session notes, sheet music, and raw audio readings to illustrate the song keys of each album, the band’s working schedule, and the ways in which they self-reference their songs, etc. They’re really beautiful and draw you in to read the all the details. This detailed tracking reminds me of Feltron‘s data-tracking of his everyday routines. Via information aesthetics.

The Best and Worst Cities to Look for Work

admin — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 03:34:28 +0000

Source: http://www.good.is/post/transparency-the-best-and-worst-cities-to-look-for-work/

Now that I’m done with my masters program, it’s time that I start looking for a job. GOOD published an interesting infographic visualizing the unemployment rates in American metropolitan cities.

For myself personally, location is appearing to be a factor as to the kind of opportunities I can find relating to interaction design or user experience. For example, after living in Hong Kong I’ve come to realize that over there, design is not highly valued as a business strategy but still strongly perceived as simple re-styling or giving different physical forms. Toronto, on the other hand, is home to a handful of creative design firms, particularly in web, branding and advertising, yet I haven’t found many consultancies specializing in user-centered design, especially ones seeking interaction designers. It seems that the opportunities that appeal to me are more prominent in the US, especially San Francisco, NYC and Boston, as well as some cities in Europe, including London.

Let the search continue, wherever it may lead me.

Visualizing Mobility Patterns

admin — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 07:50:51 +0000

Dan Boyarski, former head of Carnegie Mellon’s School of Design, visited HK PolyU as a guest lecturer over the past three weeks to conduct a design studio workshop with my class. We were asked to collect data about ourselves over five days to create a visual representation. In this sense, it becomes information design in the form of a self-portrait.

I tracked the locations I visited, my routes and the modes of transportation I took, then sketched out my patterns following the form of the Hong Kong map. I also kept track of the times at which I travelled so I considered the use of colour to differentiate the different days and times of travel.

Because of the rich data set I had collected, it was important to convey the information on both a macro and micro level for the viewers. Macro view gives a big-picture idea of the data set (the map pattern), while micro view communicates the details of my travels, such as the date, time, exact location, duration. I created a colour-coded timeline to engage viewers on the micro level, which also acts as a legend for the line colours and types on the map.

I presented the final piece as a printed poster 23″ x 16.5″.

Detailed Views

Data Set

Concept Sketches