Lecture Reflection #2 – Design for This Century: Ted Byfield

In the lecture by Ted Byfield, he starts off talking about a map designed to represent a cross section of information about murders occurring in New York city. Everyday the NY Police department announces crimes happening in the city usually made from reports, news accounts & other reporting in general. The map shown to us was the reported data from 2003 – 2009. Byfield pointed out the fabricators & designers of the map could have done a better job by including some key information about the crimes. For example, listing information about the month & time of day it happened. Information about race or ethnicity of the perpetrator, the gender of the victim, the age of the victim, the age of the perpetrator, type of weapon used, the borough in which the crime occurred could have made this a more comprehensive resource for others to review. He went off on a tangent about the various names for these types of charts. They were
“scientific visualization”, “information visualization”, “information architecture”, “information design”, “infographics”, “explanation graphics” & “data visualization”.
He then went on to talk about informational images & the common characteristics of them. Characteristics such as the hybrid use of text, quantitative data, maps, images, and/ or legends.
The next thing he covered was how our perception of knowledge consumption is influenced by technology creating seeming jumps in our average human knowledge base. We were shown a comparative analysis of human consumption of knowledge in the contrasting form of an average Sunday New York Times newspaper & how it compares to the lifetime knowledge of people living in different historic periods of time. E.g. “The New York Times on an average Sunday contains more information than a Renaissance-era person had access to in his entire lifetime.” Something I didn’t know & found quite fascinating, whether it is true or not. We got into a discussion in class about a designer’s ethics, principles & the omission of certain data when creating data visualization charts in professional practice. There have been times when as a designer, we sometimes have a bias in the creation of our designs. For me, when working with others, there have been times when I made a prototype or thumbnail concept I really liked & presented it in a certain positive light to influence the people I worked with regardless if they really preferred one of the other thumbnails or sketch concepts I made as an alternative. This lecture & the following recitation class let me reflect on my own design practices & design practices in general.