Visualization Design Citique

Alex Dediu Andrew Gerstenslager

Visualiztion Details
Link to visualization: This is a visualizaton describing selfie data

Data

This visualization is an exploratory visualization on selfie data with various features of faces
including measurements of different parts of faces as well as categorical data. Measurements include
data points such as age, tilt and turn of head, and mood. Categorical variables include age, gender,
eyes (open/closed/?), mouth (open/closed/?), and glasses (no/yes/?).
The dataset was collected from Instagram photos posted in 5 different cities: New York City, Sao
Paulo, Bangkok, Berlin and Moscow. Photos were filtered to include only selfies, and photos were
tagged with the various measurements by humans and algorithms.
There is also a region selector with a map to allow users to select a region to see what data matches
thosse areas.
The faces below will filter to match all faces within the selected subset of the data. The images
filter and change immediately and responsively when a new desired filter is specified.
The distributions of the continuous variables and sizes of the categorical bubbles update as well.
The distributions highlight the distribution of the data selected as a teal colored overlay which
allows for direct comparison. The map and categorical variable circles also update their size based
on their frequency in that selection of data.
There is also a number indicator telling the user how many of the images are in the current
selection which can help the user determine the magnitude of changing a selection.

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Interaction Available
The map’s highlighted circular areas are clickable, updating the various charts. There are blue
regions that highlight over the data when a region is selected, showing the distribution of that
area in the world. That selected part of the world changes color to indicate that it is currently
selected and all other world regions become dark as well to further help the user.

Clicking on a categorical bubble does a similar technique to the world graph. Selecting a bubble
highlights that selection and grays out the rest of the categorical variables. The distributions and
faces update accordingly.

The continuous charts are also brushable. Brushing a chart highlights that section of the graph
with a blue color. The rest of the graph remains a gray color. The other charts update accordingly.

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Design Ideas Behind Visualization:
Color: This visualization has a very simple color pallete, using gray and blue as the only indicators
of the data
Layout: This visualization fits well on a desktop while on mobile shrinks the width of the
visualization to the width of the device making the text and aspects of the visualization tiny.
On desktop, the layout is straightforward with all of the filters above with the output images on
the bottom of the screen. Including all the charts at the top all together is a good decision for
the layout.

Purpose of Visualization
This visualization was most likely created as a method of communicating an interesting dataset.
The average internet user would probably explore this visualization if they came across it.
The visualization could be particularly insightful for people studying who is using social media in
the world, and how they are using it.
A user could use this visualization to help answer any questions they may have regarding the
demographic trends of people who post selfies.
As an example, we can find out which city has the youngest selfie posters. Making a selection on
the map, we can see that most cities have a similar average age, but the average age for Bangkok
is significantly younger.

Strengths of Visualization
This visualization provides an impressive amount of interaction to the user. The visualization also
allows for multiple selections which gives the user more freedom.
The chart overlays for selections are great for providing more context.

Improvements to Visualization
There should be tooltips, especially for the categorical charts. I would like to see the exact count
for some categories as judging the exact number by the radius is difficult.

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Adding an interactive feature where clicking on a photo will add some indicators in the charts to
show the data for that photo would be helpful.
I think it would be more effective if the charts were a bit more consistent in style.