In a world of ever increasing information and data, it is now more important than ever to find ways to properly visualize and interperet that data.
The gallery that Michael Friendly has cultivated of some of the infographics that he views as the best and the worst to be printed offers much insight into the general do’s and don’t’s of data visualization. One that I found particularly striking utilized the format of an infographic to, rather than provide information or cite statistics, criticise infographics for being “nothing but simple graphs and color.” Friendly highlights the danger of inaccurately representing an article as supported by data as a mean’s of attracting the reader’s attention. I’m interested in the mindset behind framing one’s opinion as fact: did the author, perhaps, think that doing so would give their thoughts more credibility? If their intentions were to lure in individuals who enjoy reading infographics, I’m curious as to what their message was to this target audience.
In regard to good infographics that present information in a clear and effective way, I found myself particularly entranced by Friendly’s “visual delights” category. More specifically, I loved watching a video proof of the pythagorean theorem that worked via the manipulation of triangles and squares rather than the more traditional, numeric approach. As a very visual learner, it fascinated me to see the intuition behind the pythagorean theorem, and my mind immediately jumped to the use of such data visualization techniques to help students approach mathematics from a different perspective, helping demonstrate that math is so much more than crunching numbers.
Your point on using visualizations to help students with math is interesting! In addition to aiding in conveying information, visualization tools can also grab the audience’s attention. This could be a great way to engage students in a classroom setting.