(De-)constructing Infographics

Facilitator #1: Yuri Engelhardt
Company: University of Amsterdam

Facilitator #2: Christian Behrens
Company: Interaction Design Lab

Session #: 302
Session Title: (De-)constructing Infographics: The Building Blocks of Information Visualization in Theory and Practice

Date: Tuesday 14 October
Time: 10:45 - 12:15
Room: Announced on site 

Description

There is an amazing variety of different ways to represent information visually. Despite this diversity, almost all types of graphics and diagrams are constructed using very basic visual coding principles, and there seems to be only a limited set of these basic visual coding principles to choose from. Selecting and creatively combining these principles in diverse ways, yields the whole spectrum of possibilities from the most simple to the most complex information visualizations.

In this session you will explore this notion of a 'building block system' of visual language: Which basic visual coding principles can be identified as the building blocks of visualization? Which of these building blocks are appropriate for representing which kind of information? What are the 'rules of the game' for combining two, three, or many of these basic visual coding principles into meaningful and interesting visual representations?

Attendees will engage in hands-on exercises with such a building block system. You will, for instance, analyze famous examples of information graphics by recreating their 'anatomy' or 'grammar' through combinations of basic visual coding principles. As a next step, you will start with characterizations of information that you would like to visualize, and use the building block system to develop different possible graphic constructions from scratch.

This session is not intended as a training drill in a fixed and rigid system, but it aims at jointly exploring the possibilities and limitations that the notion of basic visual coding principles brings about. The combined expertise and experience of the attendees will sharpen our skills of deconstructing and constructing surprising visual representations within the wide spectrum of visual possibilities. 

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