Creating a common mental model
Steven Chien interviews Martin Wattenberg via a series of emails from May 15 – May 20
MARTIN WATTENBERG runs IBM's Visual Communication Lab where he explores information visualizations that help people make sense of data. One such project is Many Eyes, where the goal is to “harness the collective intelligence of the net” for discovery, insight and analysis. Martin was recently named “one of the world’s 100 top young innovators” by Technology Review. He is also well known for artistic data visualization, in which information sources as varied as music, museum collections and Web searches are rendered visually.
Assignment Zero interviewed Martin about how visualization helps foster the exchange of ideas and insights, and about "sensemaking."
Q: What are some of the pros and cons of extracting the wisdom in crowds via visualization?
A: Visualization serves several purposes: defining common ground, attracting a crowd, making complex information accessible to a larger audience. These are the pros. There are definitely some negative aspects. People can fixate on superficial aspects of a chart or graph. And understanding and using complex visualizations sometimes requires a high degree of visual literacy, or at least a willingness to explore.
5/20/07
