This week we started by looking at the history of using diagrams for information. How this goes back to ancient times with cave paintings moving onto hieroglyphics, which were used to visualise ideas and key information. We looked at the origin of charts from the 17th and 18th Centuries and the different charts that were developed. We also looked at different ways humans have used diagrams, pictograms and illustrations to show the workings of the human body, its organs and functions and how this has aided advances in medical knowledge and treatment. Finally we covered all the main types of charts used today in data visualisation and the essential dos and don’ts of using these charts for effectively telling a narrative with data.
While pictograms, which then developed through hieroglyphics to the alphabets we recognise today have been found dating back to ancient civilisations, charts as we would recognise them only started to be used in the late 1700s.
One of the pioneers of charts was William Playfair, he created the first known bar chart, line chart and pie chart between 1786 and 1801. These are still three of the most common charts used in data visualisation today, so we cannot underestimate the importance of Playfair’s work. However, his charts were not widely accepted in his own lifetime with many serious academics considering them childish. It is fascinating looking back from today where charts and data visualisations are such huge parts of daily life. Where we understand how data visualisation can add meaning to raw data and just how much quicker the human brain can take in visual information over words that this was the prevailing view to such pioneering work, and that William Playfair never received the credit he was due in his own lifetime.
Here is one of Playfair’s charts showing imports versus exports to Norway and Denmark, it is amazing to look at this and see how familiar it looks. It would also be very easy to imagine something very similar to this being included in an economic report today. William Playfair was key to our data visualisation heavy world of today.
Source (https://priceonomics.com/when-did-charts-become-popular/) Last Accessed 05/04/23
By the twentieth century however charts had gained much more popularity, and people had started to recognise how not only charts but visualisations of all kinds of different types of data could aid understanding and help people on a day to day basis.
One of the most famous examples of this is the map of the London Underground, created by electrical draughtsman Harry Beck in 1931. Harry Beck realised that what people needed to navigate the complicated network of underground railways was not geographical accuracy, but simplicity and clarity. Taking inspiration from his day job drawing electrical diagrams, he created a clear colour-coded map, that was initially rejected by the London Underground’s publicity department but accepted after public consultation. The design is recognised worldwide as a seminal piece of design, and even with multiple additions to the London Underground network the core of the design remains the same and there are no plans to radically change it anytime soon.
Below is a comparison of what he map of the London Underground looked like before (left) and after (right) Beck’s redesign. While the previous map is more accurate geographically there is no doubt that in terms of usability and being easy to understand Harry Beck moved things forward an incredible amount.
Source (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/351789466/figure/fig1/AS:1026860578246657@1621834048123/London-Underground-map-a-before-and-b-after-Harry-Beck-redesign-The-New-York-Times.png) Last Accessed 05/04/23
Another key individual in the development of Data Visualisation is Otto Neurath, who developed ISOTyPE (International System of Typographic Picture Education), designed to show information with as little words as possible. Otto worked on his system with his wife Marie Neurath and Gerd Arntz over two decades from 1925 and set up the ISOTYPE institute as a prototype studio after escaping the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands.
The ISOTYPE System involves the use of pictograms to show information, and has been used or been the inspiration for everything from signage for public bathrooms to computer interfaces. Its simplicity is the key to its success, it allows us to understand information very quickly and almost without thought.
The diagram below shows the life expectancy of a number of different animals and is typical of diagrams crated using the ISOTYPE style, it is incredibly easy to understand at first glance yet it contains a lot of information. We also see colour used very well to add further information without adding much complication to the overall diagram. If you tried to show this information using words it would take significantly longer to extract the key facts from the data and this is where data visualisation shows its real strength.
