Task 2: Data Visualisation
As part of last week’s workshop we had the opportunity to work with another online visualisation tool called ‘Many Eyes’, which turned data from a table into a visualisation, for example a bar chart or pie chart, which presented the initial data we input. To get to grips with the tool we got given the task of carrying out a research experiment and then inputting the data found in order to produce one of the visualisations. This was our second designated task that we had to carry out. I decided on choosing the topic of how long all of us spend on all the different types of media, for example, how long we spend on the internet and watch television. I surveyed 15 people and how long they usually spend on each activity in a typical day of theirs. I considered the different ways on how I could collect research for my experiment. I considered making a Facebook Group Page dedicated to the experiment and invite 15 people whom I am friends with to gain feedback. However, in the end I chose not to use this idea as there was risks like people not replying and not wishing to take part. Instead, I chose to use the hands on approach and ask people face to face. This way I would be able to receive feedback quickly and if people did not wish to take part, I would be able to seek new participants straight away. To make my research unbiased I asked people of all ages, some students and some not, some on my course and some who aren’t. I input all my found data into a table on Microsoft Excel and the end table after collecting my results looked like this below.
I then placed the data I collected onto the online visualisation tool, Many Eyes. I chose to visualise my data as a Pie Chart as most people know and understand how a pie chart shows data and therefore it would be an easy way to show how long people usually spend on the activity. This is what my final visualisation looks like:
Problems
There was only one particular problem I experienced when carrying out this task. This was when it came to inputting my table of research into Many Eyes, it didn’t recognise the format of the table and therefore none of the tools would create a visualisation. My initial table showed each individuals data. I had to change this format and instead show the 15 participants results as a collective group for the visualisation tool to work as it would be too time consuming to create 15 different pie charts for each individual. After putting the results in as a whole and altering the layout of the table about five times, it finally worked when it came to creating a visualisation.
My overall thought of the online visualisation tool, Many Eyes, is that it is very fussy with what data is needed in order to produce the visualisation. I often found that the visualisations I wanted to use could not be produced with the data I had and got very confused as to what I needed in order to produce them. Despite having these problems, I think the overall idea of Many Eyes and what it has to offer, it is a very good tool in order to create visualisations from raw data. If I had to do this task again, I would possibly have an equal balance of students and non students, for example, working adults. This way I would get a lot of different data as most people I asked were students, despite the odd two older members of my family, and it is very biased and unrepresentative as a lot of students spend most of their time on the computer due to their work load and social networking. As a whole, this task has been different and interesting. It has made me aware of tools that I had never heard before. Although due to the problems I experienced numerously on Many Eyes, I probably won’t opt to use it in the future.
