I <3 infovis
Feb. 14th, 2006 10:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jaeclecticBayCHI tonight was vunderbar. I feel sorry for all of you who missed it because you had a date for Valentine's Day instead ;)
The main talk was Jock Mackinlay (co-editor of the infovis reader) talking about his current work with a startup doing a totally sensible, practical, usable viz tool for database exploration. No blinding revelations, no 3D topographic rendering, just stuff that works -- small multiple bar charts, for instance -- but totally nailing the details as far as interaction, ease of use, good defaults, all the basics. I was just enthralled.
And then there were a bunch o' demos, including the infamous They Rule, and a cute little Friendster viz by a couple of those wacky kids from UC Berkeley, and a sweet flickr / mapping mashup which you may have all seen before but I somehow hadn't, and some other cool stuff from the same company (who are obviously having way too much fun to be getting paid for it) including something that involved google news and trends over time, which filled me with deep nostalgia and a twinge that our timing was just off that little bit...
So anyway, despite the struggle to drag my sorry ass down to Palo Alto, it was great, and those who are interested should look for the podcast on the BayCHI site.
Oh, one more bit: The They-Rule guy, Josh On, did an impromptu demonstration of visualizing social networking like so: He mentioned the name of a pioneer in information vizualization, Jacques Bertin, and asked who knew his work. I knew the name was familiar but couldn't dredge it up quickly enough to raise my hand, but I was sitting next to the fabulous Elizabeth C who did raise her hand. So he called her up onto the stage. Then he asked everyone who knew Elizabeth to come up, which was me and 3 others. Then he said: "OK, put your hand on the shoulder of the person you've known longest": which resulted in me and Rashmi with our hands on each other's shoulders, and the other three similarly in a cluster. Magic!
Right, now I must try to settle down and put myself to bed, because even though I'm working at home tomorrow, morning will come too soon...
The main talk was Jock Mackinlay (co-editor of the infovis reader) talking about his current work with a startup doing a totally sensible, practical, usable viz tool for database exploration. No blinding revelations, no 3D topographic rendering, just stuff that works -- small multiple bar charts, for instance -- but totally nailing the details as far as interaction, ease of use, good defaults, all the basics. I was just enthralled.
And then there were a bunch o' demos, including the infamous They Rule, and a cute little Friendster viz by a couple of those wacky kids from UC Berkeley, and a sweet flickr / mapping mashup which you may have all seen before but I somehow hadn't, and some other cool stuff from the same company (who are obviously having way too much fun to be getting paid for it) including something that involved google news and trends over time, which filled me with deep nostalgia and a twinge that our timing was just off that little bit...
So anyway, despite the struggle to drag my sorry ass down to Palo Alto, it was great, and those who are interested should look for the podcast on the BayCHI site.
Oh, one more bit: The They-Rule guy, Josh On, did an impromptu demonstration of visualizing social networking like so: He mentioned the name of a pioneer in information vizualization, Jacques Bertin, and asked who knew his work. I knew the name was familiar but couldn't dredge it up quickly enough to raise my hand, but I was sitting next to the fabulous Elizabeth C who did raise her hand. So he called her up onto the stage. Then he asked everyone who knew Elizabeth to come up, which was me and 3 others. Then he said: "OK, put your hand on the shoulder of the person you've known longest": which resulted in me and Rashmi with our hands on each other's shoulders, and the other three similarly in a cluster. Magic!
Right, now I must try to settle down and put myself to bed, because even though I'm working at home tomorrow, morning will come too soon...
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Date: 2006-02-15 02:36 pm (UTC)damn but this made me miss the bay area.
and the josh on thing is a fabulous impromptu classroom exercise--hell, i may use it today, since we're doing network-stuffs.