The making of the NYT’s Netflix graphic

Kevin Quealy, a graphic editor at the New York Times, reveals the method to the radness of the interactive Netflix queue graphic that went up on the Times’ website last week. His discussion of their primary design considerations hits upon precisely what makes the map a popular success:

the hardest part about this graphic was designing the interface. We wanted readers to be able to find a given movie quickly, but a search box didn’t really work visually. We also wanted to give readers an idea which movies were most popular and which were most critically acclaimed.

I mocked up at least ten versions. None were any good. The challenge was navigation. As a user, I wanted to be able to see one movie in a bunch of different cities, fast, or I wanted to see a bunch of movies in one city just as fast. So there are two major navigation elements – cities and movies – but the map itself still needed to be the visual focal point of the graphic.

The ability to jump from city to city without worrying about the formalities of zooms in and out makes playing with it plenty pleasant. Not mentioned but nearly as important is the second sentence of the two sentence summary, just below the map title (the bolding is mine):

Examine Netflix rental patterns, neighborhood by neighborhood, in a dozen cities. Some titles with distinct patterns are Mad Men, Obsessed and Last Chance Harvey.

A statement as intriguing as that is like a sheet of bubble wrap left in your path on the way to work: it’s not a clear invitation to play, but you’ll pop it anyway.

Fish mega-shoals could be world's biggest animal group

The article quotes the project’s leader commenting on the power of new visualization techniques that allowed the researchers to see hundreds of millions of fish forming vast mega-shoals off the coast of Massachusetts:

If we see what’s in the ocean we’ll be more mindful of conserving it.

Eyecandy

The Book of Comparisons

The Diagram Group’s Book of Comparisons uses the size of familiar objects and experiences—a pencil, the capacity of a taxi, a walk around the block—to help us comprehend the size of less familiar objects and experiences—a giraffe, the capacity of a ship, a run around Manhattan. It’s an imperfect book but wonderfully illustrated and worth checking out.

The Geography of a Recession

Another great New York Times map, with four options for sorting counties. Be sure to use the zoom option.

Job losses have been most severe in the areas that experienced a big boom in housing, those that depend on manufacturing and those that already had the highest unemployment rates.

Question: Where to Study Information Visualization or Infographics

Information aesthetics asks its readers for the names of some good infographics-related academic programs.

NYTimes: 365/360

A Flickr set containing some absolutely stunning visualizations created by Jer Thorp using Processing and the New York Times article search API.

These visualizations show the top organizations and personalities for every year from 1985 to 2001. Connections between these people & organizations are indicated by lines.

He must have added some recently, because he’s got 1984 to 2009 represented now.

Update: there’s more information about the visualizations over at blprnt.

MapWatch

Like a worst dressed photo spread for British rail maps.

For a more theoretical critique of maps and mapping, you want to check out the field of Critical Cartography, particularly this introduction [PDF] by Jeremy Crampton and John Krygier.