Manyeyes - visualising data

manyeyes

The basics

Manyeyes is an experimental (but longlasting and stable) free application from IBM that provides good tools for uploading data and visualising it. There are profiles, messaging systems topic centres to organise a group working together and so on; it is well executed and is already, as in this example, being used by educators:

Visualisation options are legion: graphs, maps, treemaps, charts, plots and some word analytical tools. Each type is explained enabling students also to learn about such techniques for graphic representation and analysis of data:

Knowledge networking

The ‘many eyes’ of the site’s name refers to the fact that the resulting visualisations are public, and through many eyes viewing the,, discussing them and commenting more knowledgeable interpretations can be made and more people can benefit. This tool clearly demonstrates how knowledge networking is as much a commitment to openness as a technology or technique.

What is great

Range of visualisation tools, extent to which they are explained and the possibility of using other people’s datasets, rather than one’s own. In other words, there is a lot of flexibility about how to use the application and it is emphatically scholarly and not commercial.

One scenario for using this tool

Perspectives on data

Students in a criminology unit are given, or source, public data on crime rates and locations. They then use Manyeyes to create various kinds of maps and graphs, discussing what they are doing in the site and attempting to analyse which kinds of visualisations work best, in what contexts. Final results can be published online as part of a public education campaign. Further work is done, during the unit, to develop more graphics (each student taking responsibility for one) that then contribute to the final finished product.

Manyeyes:

is great for comparing different visualisations of the same data;

is public – be aware of risks and opportunities; and

has good identity / profile features to organise one’s uses of it.

Alternatives

None of this sophistication (at least not since Swivel disappeared). Google has a visualisation engine, but it is a development tool, not a fully working application. Some other applications are listed by Alcorn at Makeuseof.com

Further discussion and concepts

Dataviz, an organisation supporting public sector uses od data visualisation has an excellent guide. The Guardian has reported on Manyeyes. Techrepublic has a paper covering some of Manyeye’s features (produced as a comparison with Swivel).

Viegas, F. et al. 2007. ManyEyes: a Site for Visualization at Internet Scale. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 13.6: 1121-1128

McCandless talks about data visualisation for TED: