2.0

Dancing with Data

In Uncategorized on April 15, 2013 at 2:26 pm

The way data enters the mind, whether in a completely idle form or a highly energetic, animated form, influences how we relate to it. The initial moment of meeting between an object and an observer is the pre-attentive phase. The observer is looking for visual cues from the object, be it body language, clothes, or facial gestures, to determine if the object is a threat or a safe “other.” This happens in the animal part of the brain.

Thus, one of the most crucial moment in the relationship between the object and the observer, is the moment before the rational brain is engaged. This is just as true in visualizing data as it is in interaction between people. Instead of body language we have visual animation of the visualization’s elements. Instead of clothes we have graphical skin. And instead of facial gestures we have easing functions and such. However, for reasons to do with the limitation of the print medium the pre-attentive phase had been largely ignored in the science and practice of data visualization. The neglect of the pre-attentive phase continued into the internet age, mainly due to the lack of proper tools for animating data but also because the emphasis on the rational in our culture, which is finally beginning to give room to the less known “irrational logic” of relationship, which extends to the relationship between object and and observer (or beholder — for physical goods.)

It’s not just how something functions that determines our relationship to it but also how it enters our mind upon first meeting it: is it sudden contact with rigid form? including with one that might react to our interaction with it? or is it a meeting with an organically animated form that reacts to our touch and motion?  The last form is ingrained by evolution in the “relating” part of our brain, so it’s more intuitive.

In the print scenario of data visualization, we experience sudden contact with a rigid form that we then have to dissect and understand. Whereas on the web, the data can engage our mind in a pre-attentive dance with possibility, and the more graceful and well choreographed the dance is the more animated we feel about the data. That is the true meaning of relating. And we can think of data visualization as a visual poem, each word or piece of data entering our mind in harmony with all others, and becoming meaningful in our body prior to entering our cerebral cortex. It’s that visceral reaction to the experience of seeing data that makes it memorable. But in the end it is about paying roughly equal attention to the pre-attentive and the cognitive phases of realization that will create a pleasant and effectual experience for the user. The tricky part is that we, as designers, must access different parts of ourselves in designing the optimal experience for both the cognitive and pre-attentive parts of the journey from the screen to the inner mind, so that the data literally dances its way to our cerebral cortex, and rather than demand our attention it calls it into being without conscious thinking on our part.

We’ve taken this theory of engagement and we’re building our data visualization with focus on both the irrational and rational (or pre-attentive and analytical phases) and the initial result have gotten strong favorable reactions from our friends and colleagues. Below is a video we’ve made of the first attempt:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hcv5PhMLniE

Artisanal Framework Design

In Uncategorized on March 16, 2013 at 4:15 pm

They say beauty is simplicity.

In fact, there is a computational theory of beauty that relies on this axiom.

When you think about front end frameworks that are supposed to produce beauty and you see incredibly over-designed ones like EXT-JS, AngularJS or EmberJS you start to wonder how Beauty can emerge from such stale mess of ideas, patterns and assumptions.

That’s why I’ve always wanted to build my own frameworks, ones that comply with my own somewhat mature intellectual desires and artistic temptations, but also ones that are a little twisted by unconventional wisdom, wrapped in deep thought and vested in the idea that code is art and creative insight is what front end developers need not a super complex framework.

As to Backbone, KnockOut etc, I have no idea why someone would want to put the backend middleware ideas on the front end, a place where we need to start fresh and not from assumptions made for the backend.

So all there is for us is to make our own artisanal frameworks, made to our needs but universally applicable with active morphing and adaptation. After all, why settle for stale ideas when we can have ideas that grow?

With that note, I give you my attempt in this regard, OrganicJS:

http://javacrypt.wordpress.com/2013/03/16/announcing-organicjs/

The Age Of Imagination

In Uncategorized on July 6, 2012 at 2:16 am

With knowledge being so readily accessible on the web, Einstein’s observation that “imagination is more important than knowledge” is becoming ever more evident.

Provided of course that one has a lot of commitment and dedication to make the imagined real.

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