Week #11 Data Visualization

Overview:

I had never heard of infographics before this week. I had seen a couple of them in magazines and such but never quite understood their purpose. They are a new way to present data. They can include the old go to's like bar charts and graphs but you are able to present these in such a way that catches the eye of the reader and is easily understood.

Videos:

The two videos we watched, one from Hans Rosling and one from Garr Reynolds, were extremely helpful in understand how to present data in a way that is visually appealing. Hans spoke about the rise of the washing machine, or in more general terms how much energy is used by each income class. But for me, it wasn't the message of his presentation that stood out it was the way he presented it. His visuals were clear and interactive, and he used physical props which brought an element of theatrics into his presentation. Garr Reynolds's video was a nice overview of what you should be doing with your visuals of a presentation. It was interesting to note that Hans used most all of Garr Reynolds tips. I think that's why he had such an effective presentation. 

Google Forms:

I had obviously used Google forms before when submitting responses for this class but I had never created one. I think this is an awesome tool. It is a quick and easy way to gather data about basically anything. Google also makes it really easy to distribute the form to people through Google+ or other social media sites. 

Infographic making tools:

When looking at all the different tools and websites available to create infographics, I chose to use Google presentations. I think I chose Google because we had just used it to create a slide a couple weeks ago so I was familiar with it. I found the other sites to be overwhelming and confusing, but it's possible I didn't take enough time to "play around" with them. I also found that I couldn't do the quintessential infographic with Google presentations, there weren't enough options. If there was something in the middle of Google and infogr.am, it would have been perfect.

Infographic: 

I wish I had taken more time to use the other infographic creation sites because I felt very limited on Google Presentations. I don't feel that mine is in the normal infographic style but, here it is: