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The top map is voting patterns in the 2008 election– the bottom map is cotton production in 1860… Image Courtesy of Pin the Tail

Is there something fishy here? Whether or not you agree with the correlation you see, this data visualization presented a new perspective in looking at the data. As Edward Tufte writes:

“At their best, graphics are instruments for reasoning about quantitative information. Often the most effective way to deescribe, explore, and summarize a set of numbers is to look at pictures of those numbers.”

Not inspired yet? Check out the following:

Box Office Receipts 1986 — 2008

Alternate View of Obama’s $819 billion Stimulus Package

A Tally of Federal Rescues by The New York Times

Travel Times on Commuter Rail

Military Budget Size

Which data visualization or infographic connected with you the most? Think you can create something better? Which one represented the story better? Did anything come out striking to you? Or are you completely overwhelmed by the information? In any case you can find a lot more about data visualization below!

Getting Started

To get started why not refer to the above “Flow Chart Shows You What Chart to Use.” More importantly find ALOT more eye-candy here:

FlowingData

SmashingMagazine

VisualComplexity

FlowingData constantly provides new data contests that you can experiment with. It also provides 40 essential tools and resources to help you get going. If you are only familiar with MATLAB, fear not. A MATLAB contest is underway right now and ends on April 10th! We already have an early bird winner, so don’t miss your chance to win the finale and join the MATLAB Central’s Hall of Fame.

MATLAB Contest

MATLAB Programming Contests are held semi-annually by the MATLAB Contest Team. The most recent one challenges MATLAB users to create data visualizations that reveals an untold story on one of the previous contest.

From the MATLAB Contest page:

As we said, this contest is structured very differently from our usual contests. The complete rules are available here, but in a nutshell, this is an open-ended contest where you are the judge. We want you to look at one very interesting data set and see what kind of insights you can mine from it. The data set in question is one of the most interesting that I know of: the data from one of our previous contests, the Peg Solitaire contest that we ran in May of 2007. I’ve been looking at data from this and other contests for years now, and I’m constantly finding new stories buried in the data. And since many of you actually participated in that contest, you’ll be particularly well positioned to find the good stories hiding in there.

Don’t forget to leave a comment here so that we can all see your entry!