Visual Insights: A Practical Guide to Making Sense of Data (Paperback)

In the age of Big Data, the tools of information visualization offer us a macroscope to help us make sense of the avalanche of data available on every subject. This book offers a gentle introduction to the design of insightful information visualizations. It is the only book on the subject that teaches nonprogrammers how to use open code and open data to design insightful visualizations. Readers will learn to apply advanced data mining and visualization techniques to make sense of temporal, geospatial, topical, and network data. The book, developed for use in an information visualization MOOC, covers data analysis algorithms that enable extraction of patterns and trends in data, with chapters devoted to "when" (temporal data), "where" (geospatial data), "what" (topical data), and "with whom" (networks and trees); and to systems that drive research and development. Examples of projects undertaken for clients include an interactive visualization of the success of game player activity in World of Warcraft; a visualization of 311 number adoption that shows the diffusion of non-emergency calls in the United States; a return on investment study for two decades of HIV/AIDS research funding by NIAID; and a map showing the impact of the HiveNYC Learning Network. Visual Insights will be an essential resource on basic information visualization techniques for scholars in many fields, students, designers, or anyone who works with data.

在大數據時代，資訊視覺化工具為我們提供了一個巨觀鏡頭，幫助我們理解每個主題上可用的大量數據。這本書提供了對洞察力資訊視覺化設計的初步介紹。這是唯一一本教非程式設計師如何使用開放代碼和開放數據來設計有洞察力的視覺化的書籍。讀者將學習應用高級數據挖掘和視覺化技術來理解時間、地理、主題和網絡數據。這本書是為信息視覺化MOOC課程而開發的，涵蓋了能夠從數據中提取模式和趨勢的數據分析算法，其中有章節專門討論“何時”（時間數據）、“何地”（地理數據）、“何物”（主題數據）和“與誰”（網絡和樹狀結構）；以及推動研究和開發的系統。為客戶進行的項目示例包括《魔獸世界》遊戲玩家活動成功的互動視覺化；一個顯示美國非緊急呼叫擴散的311號碼採用視覺化；對NIAID二十年的HIV/AIDS研究資金回報率的研究；以及顯示HiveNYC學習網絡影響的地圖。《視覺洞察》將成為許多領域學者、學生、設計師或任何與數據工作的人的基本信息視覺化技術的重要資源。