December 5, 2007; 4:00 pm
60 Oxford Street, Room 330

Martin Wattenberg, Research Staff Member, IBM, &
Fernanda Viegas, Research Staff Member, IBM

Many Eyes: Democratizing Visualization

Abstract

Data visualization has historically been accessible only to the elite in academia, business, and government. To democratize visualization, we have built Many Eyes, a web site where people upload their data, create interactive visualizations, and carry on conversations. The goal is a social style of data analysis in which visualizations spur discussion and collaboration. We present Many Eyes, describe patterns of usage on the site, and discuss what those patterns suggest about the future of visualization.

Bio

Fernanda Viegas and Martin Wattenberg are research scientists in IBM's Visual Communication Lab. Viegas is known for her pioneering work on depicting chat histories and email. Wattenberg's visualizations of the stock market and baby names are considered internet classics. Both Viegas and Wattenberg are also known for their visualization-based artwork, which has been exhibited in venues such as the London Institute of Contemporary Arts and the Whitney Museum of American Art. The two became a team in 2003 when they decided to visualize Wikipedia, leading to the "history flow" project that revealed the self-healing nature of the online encyclopedia. They are currently exploring the power of web-based visualization and the social forms of data analysis it enables

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