Monday, February 11, 2008

Periodic table of Visualization Methods

Periodic table of Visualization Methods - http://www.visual-literacy.org/periodic_table/periodic_table.html - By Ralph Lengler and Martin J Eppler of Visual Literacy.org - http://www.visual-literacy.org/.

This displays visualisation methods categorized into a periodic table type format. Each letter(s) stands for a visualisation method rather than a chemical element. So this is a good way to see many visualisations in an easy to navigate way, a visualisation of visualisation methods. The visualisation methods are also categorized by colour coding and position into overall methodologies. When the cursor is rested on a visualisation method an example pops up.

This visualisation and the details of how it's produced are described in more detail in a University of the West of England blog - Periodic table of Visualization Methods - UWE Blog - http://dsa2006.blogspot.com/2007/02/periodic-table-of-visualisations.html - UWE Blog post - "This blog supports the group of students taking Data, Schemas and Applications UFIEKG-20-3, a module taught in the Information Systems School at the University of the West of England in Bristol, UK - Visual-Literacy.org has published this great Periodic Table of methods of visualisation. This displays around 100 diagram types, with examples and a multi-faceted classification by: - simple to complex - data/information/concept/strategy/metaphor/compound - process/structure - detail/overview - divergence/convergence - The web page uses a Javascript library to display an example of a diagram type when you mouse-over its box. A neat trick but perhaps not very accessible, so I took the liberty of massaging this table to create a full listing of all the diagram types in alphabetical order. This format is more convenient for my purpose when teaching, and is a nice example of XML-scraping using XQuery."

More information on visualisation is available at - http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/amrc/seeds/Visualisation.htm and http://www.cems.uwe.ac.uk/~phale/VisualisationandInteraction.

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