Programme

The Quest for Emotional Engagement: Information Visualization

Thursday 19 April, 14:00 - 17:30, Room: Blue 2

Ready access to information is great. But many times there is too much information, too much data, or too many options to make sense of. People can easily become frustrated or disengage if they can’t connect with what is presented to them.

Stephen Anderson, designer and creator of the Mental Notes card deck, believes that people must be emotionally engaged if you want them to exhibit a certain behavior. In this workshop, Stephen will share the process he uses to create simple visual representations to help people make informed choices and understand complex information.

In brief, design patterns such as spreadsheets, lists, dashboards and grid views suffice for getting data onto a screen. However, when it comes to making sense of this data, these same patterns hold us back from designing great experiences; generic patterns arepoor substitutes for a good custom visualization, especially one designed for the content being displayed. Stephen will share with you many examples of such visualizations, and the process used to design each. Topics will include:

• How to construct interactive models that make sense of complex information
• Basic graphic design skills that can be used by anyone (and how to avoid simply “dressing up data”)*
• The challenges of visualizing dynamic information, and how this differs from data visualizations and infographics
• How to use metaphor and story to make sense of complex information
• The neuroscience behind perception and judgement
• And much more!

Examples cover a variety of topic areas, such as: Health Insurance plans, medical charts, eCommerce search results, flight times, sales and CRM data, mobile phone bills, recipes, pirated movies, academic research, shopping lists and so on.

In addition to the many numerous information visualization examples, most of which will be new to attendees, there will be multiple hands-on exercises where you will practice the skills being taught.

Information is ripe for a makeover. This workshop will show you useful & engaging ways to present information.

* No graphic design skills are required!