Lightning Review: Data Visualization for Success

Data visualization is where the humanities and sciences meet: viewers are dazzled by the presentation yet informed by research. Lovingly referred to as “the poster child of interdisciplinarity” by Steven Braun, data visualization brings these two fields closer together than ever to help provide insights that may have been impossible without the other. In his book Data Visualization for Success, Braun sits down with forty designers with experience in the field to discuss their approaches to data visualization, common techniques in their work, and tips for beginners.

Braun’s collection of interviews provides an accessible introduction into data visualization. Not only is the book filled with rich images, but each interview is short and meant to offer an individual’s perspective on their own work and the field at large. Each interview begins with a general question about data visualization to contribute to the perpetual debate of what data visualization is and can be moving forward.

Picture of Braun's "Data Visualization for Success"

Antonio Farach, one of the designers interviewed in the book, calls data visualization “the future of storytelling.” And when you see his work – or really any of the work in this book – you can see why. Each new image has an immediate draw, but it is impossible to move past without exploring a rich narrative. Visualizations in this book cover topics ranging from soccer matches to classic literature, economic disparities, selfie culture, and beyond.

Each interview ends by asking the designer for their advice to beginners, which not only invites new scholars and designers to participate in the field but also dispels any doubt of the hard work put in by these designers or the science at the root of it all. However, Barbara Hahn and Christine Zimmermann of Han+Zimmermann may have put it best, “Data visualization is not making boring data look fancy and interesting. Data visualization is about communicating specific content and giving equal weight to information and aesthetics.”

A leisurely, stunning, yet informative read, Data Visualization for Success offers anyone interested in this explosive field an insider’s look from voices around the world. This wonderful read is available for checkout from the Scholarly Commons collection in the Main Stacks.

Introduction to Web-Based Word Cloud Generators

A word cloud created with Tagul using the words from this blog post!

A word cloud created with Tagul using the words from this blog post!

If you’re in a pinch and need some kind of visualization to go along with a presentation or project, a word cloud can be an easy fix. Word clouds take the most frequently used words in a block of text and create a visual where the most frequently-occurring words appear larger, and smaller words are smaller. There are thousands of ways to create a word cloud, but these are a few simple generators that can help you out when you need a word cloud in a hurry.

TagCrowd

TagCrowd is, perhaps, the simplest of all these generators to use, and one of the few generators that can create a word cloud from a URL. Simply paste the text or URL, or upload a file to TagCrowd and it will create a blue word cloud for you. There aren’t many options as far as styling goes — unlike some of the other generators we’ll be looking at — but it could not be simpler. The options that TagCrowd does give you are: language, maximum number of words, minimum frequency of words, show frequencies, group similar words, convert to lowercase, and exclusion of certain words.

That being said, be careful when you use a URL with TagCrowd. Below are two examples: the first, I copy-pasted the text of David Sedaris’ essay “Stepping Out” from The New Yorker. The second, I used the URL for the story, rather than the text. The two clouds were entirely different, and the URL didn’t give me the actual words from the story.

The TagCrowd cloud from the copy-pasted text.

The TagCrowd cloud from the copy-pasted text.

The TagCrowd cloud from the URL.

The TagCrowd cloud from the URL.

WordClouds.com

WordClouds.com provides more options than TagCrowd, and produces more aesthetically pleasing — though, perhaps, less simple to read and understand — word clouds. You can input text through copy-pasting, through a text or PDF file, as well as through a URL. Notably, the URL option works better at WordClouds.com. WordClouds.com also lets you customize your image, by fitting the word cloud into particular shapes, as well as offering different color schemes and fonts. It is also easier to get data about the frequency of word usage on WordClouds.com, and it allows you to save/share your word cloud in a variety of formats. Overall, WordClouds.com is a whimsical alternative for generating a word cloud. Below are two word clouds I created using the Sedaris essay from its URL. I chose a checkmark shape for the first cloud, and the second is an automatically-generated rainbow.

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I chose to shape my word cloud as a check mark with WordClouds.com.

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The rainbow option is fun and easy to use, though maybe not the most easily readable option on WordClouds.com.

Tagul

And finally, we have Tagul. Tagul is the most complicated of these three options, but also allows you to the most customization and options for your word cloud. Tagul allows you to add/subtract words easily from your word cloud, as well as give you a number of shapes, fonts, color and animation options for your word cloud. You can make something as simple as a circle in one color, or an emoji smiley face that has the word pop up when you hover over it. You will probably spend more time creating your word cloud on Tagul, but you can really make sure you’re getting what you want. Below are two word clouds — one simple, one more complicated — created with copy-pasted text from Sedaris’ essay.

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Our more dramatic word cloud made with Tagul.

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A simpler and easy to read word cloud created with Tagul.

There are many other options for creating word clouds, but these are three easy websites that you can use when you need a word cloud and you need one quick.