Three Minds On Digital Marketing @ Organic

As an interface engineer, I care a great deal about accuracy in data display. Whenever I see quantitative info display that is inaccurate not through faulty data but faulty display I can't help but do what I can to tell the uncompromised story. This is why I strive to apply good techniques in order to portray information clearly and find inspiration from designers like Edward Tufte and Jeffrey Veen. Jeffrey Veen is one of the founding partners of Adaptive Path and Google, where he lead the redesign of Google Analytics.

Veen recently published a 20 minute version of his presentation at the 2009 Web 2.0 Expo that neatly puts together much thought on the topic of designing for and building out huge datasets, with both modern and historical examples. Many of his historical examples are things you'll recognize from the likes of Tufte et al, but he pairs them to great effect with recent projects from around the web, including Google Analytics and Gapminder World.

In the video he outlines several important trends, "we are shifting as a culture from consumers to participants, and how technology has enabled massive amounts of data to be recorded, stored, and analyzed." The question for us is how to use smart and compelling visualizations like these with the wealth of data we're gathering to improve the quality of life for users.

Have a look at the video, it's well worth the time and provides a lot of food for thought: http://www.veen.com/jeff/archives/001000.html

Phil Dokas