The Design of Information

Came across this fascinating interaction from the New York Times, doing research for a client project. It was interesting just as a static image with a few rollovers, but then I clicked some of the links up top (types of spending, changes) and things started flying.

I like how it invites interaction. The playfulness of the motion may be a little distracting from the data, but I think it does make it more “sticky”. Try clicking back to the “all spending” tab after exploring the others – interesting to see that the individual bubbles don’t exactly fall back into their original places. I guess the budgeting process is messy like that.

Thanks to Jim Vallandingham for the link.

With the presidential election fast approaching, interest in the predicted outcome is high. I’m impressed by detailed data graphics on Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight blog for the New York Times, not only for their clarity but for his thoroughness in examining the data.

I guess we’ll see about the accuracy of all these predictions after November 6.

Trust the Olympics to inspire some innovative data visualization. Thanks to friend Peter F. for the tip on a nice series of visualizations from The New York Times that compare today’s winning sprinters, swimmers and jumpers with past medalists.

Interesting to see the steady march forward over the years in swimming and sprinting.

Curious that there’s not a similar progression in jumping. Is that because the long jump is a more complicated venture than a pure sprint? Or just because there was only one Bob Beamon?