Data visualization is crucial in understanding data and identifying hidden connections that matter. Below are 5 TED talks on data visualization you don’t want to miss!
1. Hans Rosling: The best stats you’ve ever seen
Han Rosling, cofounder of the Gapminder Foundation, developed the Trendalyzer software that converts international statistics – such as life expectancy and child mortality rate – into innovative, interactive graphics. The statistics guru is a strong advocate for public access to data and the development of tools that make it accessible and usable for all. In this classic talk, Rosling highlights the importance of data in debunking myths about the gap between developed countries and the so-called “developing world.” Even though the talk was filmed 10 years ago, it still carries very important and relevant messages.
Watch more of Rosling’s TED talks here.
2. David McCandless: The beauty of data visualization
In this visually captivating talk, data journalist David McCandless suggests that data visualization is a quick solution to our current problem of information overload. Visualizations allow us to see the hidden patterns, identify connections that matter, and tell stories with data. To McCandless, “even when the information is terrible, the visual can be quite beautiful”; this is a controversial claim, however, since the main goal of data visualization should be to communicate information effectively through graphical means.
3. Dave Troy: Social maps that reveal a city’s intersections – and separations
A serial entrepreneur and data-viz fan, Dave Troy takes a people-focused approach to data visualization. Troy has been mapping tweets among city dwellers, revealing what connects communities and what separates them – above and beyond demographic factors such as race or ethnicity. He compares a city to a “giant high school cafeteria” and suggests that we see “how everybody arranged themselves in a seating chart”, arguing that “maybe it’s time to shake up the seating chart a little bit” to reshape our cities.
4. Eric Berlow & Sean Gourley: Mapping ideas worth spreading
An ecologist and a physicist, Eric Berlow and Sean Gourley, collaborate in this presentation to create stunning 3D visualizations demonstrating the interconnectedness of ideas. Taking 4,000 TEDx talks from 147 countries representing 50 languages, they explore their “meme-omes” – the mathematical structures that underlie the ideas behind these talks – and discover similarities between seemingly unconnected topics. Berlow and Gourley also broke down complex themes into multiple more specific ones, seeing what topics resonated with viewers and what kind of audience looked at what topic. To Gourley, mapping ideas in this way will help us “to see what’s being said, to see what’s not being said, and to be a little bit more human and, hopefully, a little smarter.”
5. Manuel Lima: A visual history of human knowledge
Founder of VisualComplexity.com Manuel Lima, described by Wired Magazine as “the man who turns data into art,” explains the visual metaphor shift from the tree to the network as “a new lens to understand the world around us.” Lima argues that the tree – an important tool to map everything from genealogy to systems of law to Darwin’s “Tree of Life” – is being replaced by a new metaphor – the network. Rigid structures are evolving into interdependent systems, and networks emerge to embody the nonlinearity, decentralization, interconnectedness, and multiplicity of ideas and knowledge. The shift in visual metaphor also represents a new way of thinking – one that is critical for us to solve many complex problems we are facing.