All sorts of companies, including agencies like R/West, use data visualizations to tell stories from numbers. Understanding trends, correlations, outliers, and other behaviors within data sets is tricky if you’re just looking at a spreadsheet or database. Here are a few inspiring, thought-provoking, and quirky examples of data visualization.
Physical mapping
Finding the shortest path to visit all 48 capitols in the Continental United States
Plotting millions of journal entries from ship logs from 1700-1900 to reveal trade routes
Animating work versus home behavior flow in Manhattan
Overlaying histograms of world population by latitude and longitude
Comparing human routes and dog routes while hiking
Planning for terraforming on the Moon and Mars
http://vizual-statistix.tumblr.com/post/110268185576/terraforming-other-planets-is-a-common-theme-of
Suggesting it’s not always about the shortest route
http://www.ted.com/talks/daniele_quercia_happy_maps
Going West, young man (and woman)
Mapping US history
Human behavior
Giving high school students a little boost
Naming US-born male babies (Raj, Rajiv, and Faruq aren’t as popular here)
Finding out what’s most likely to kill you, depending on your age
Learning everything you wanted to know about pooping, and then some
Comparing dating texts to married texts
Sup, bro? Yo, dude!
http://qz.com/316906/the-dude-map-how-american-men-refer-to-their-bros/
Measuring cumulative damage caused by Calvin
Shearing a wealth of data about facial hair (this needs to be updated)
Visualizing hand value in Texas Hold’em Poker
http://chrisbeaumont.org/holdem_odds/#8H+QS
Searching for, and finding, Waldo
Beating heart beating hard during a marriage proposal
Understanding correlation and causation
Visualizations of data correlations that tell us absolutely nothing about causations
Written by: Alex Head