FlowingData, if you don't already read them: start now

FlowingData has a nice post today rounding up 20 data visualizations related to crime and criminals. Most revolve around maps with temporal components shoehorned into a few. We love maps here at Graphient. We love them for how they visually describe space, and we really love them for the way they provide a fixed contextual grid for organizing other kinds of data. The map visualizations presented at FlowingData stop short of adding in other data and stick to simply reporting the facts of crime, but those maps could have been used to introduce and connect all sorts of other (possibly sensitive) socioeconomic data and maybe tell a deeper story about crime.

Last week I was in Boston briefly and thanks to a logistical spasm I had the opportunity to ride the Silverline from Logan Airport to South Station. While waiting for said Silverline I encountered this map:

Detail of the map in question.

I took a picture of the map because of the wear pattern created by countless travelers tracing their fingers over it. In that wear pattern we can see those travelers working out their routes on the Silverline and picking out the different transfer points throughout the system. In essence the map carries a second channel of data relative to the first. Of course this second channel is pretty unscientific but we haven’t let that stop us from appreciating the aesthetics of information presentation before and we won’t start now.

Later in the day I was talking to my Dad about this phenomena, and the idea that data is being recorded in the physical world all around us, all the time, simply by the way we use things. He mentioned Wells Cathedral in Somerset, England. The stone stairs of the cathedral’s chapter house date to 1306, and they have been eroded along the preferred path worshippers and clergy have taken ascending and descending those stairs all these years.

Those very steps

While much of this naturally recorded information is of limited utility or has ambiguous meaning, we find ourselves oddly stimulated by the idea that a channel of information is projected onto the world in this way.

We’ve started building out our new site. Go take a look. Then come back and say complimentary things about it in the comments section of this post.

Visual design has long been looked at by many of those in business as a coat of paint to be applied to a finished product to help it sell. In this world view design takes a back seat to advertising and its significance as a discipline is reduced.

This is (thankfully) starting to change, largely due to the universal recognition of the importance of User Interface design. Still, design remains a poorly understood and difficult process for most companies. So much so that good UI design can actually be used as an indicator of a company’s health. This was shown rather effectively by Teehan + Lax and their UX fund.

This is because of two things. The first is that good design, particularly good UI design creates a more attractive, easier to use product. Such a product will sell better than something unattractive and difficult to use. The second is that Design is hard. Design is particularly hard for dysfunctional groups or groups made up of individuals with competing visions or interests.

The execution of a well designed product can be seen as a sign or corporate health in that it is the end result of a series of interactions between very complex systems of needs. Only a well managed organization can sort out these complex systems properly. It is a miracle it happens at all.

So the next time you have a particularly easy and rewarding interaction with a well designed product, think not just of the designers, but also of the executives who had the good sense to pay for quality and the presence of mind not to ruin it.

Ok, these probably won’t be daily. But they might be, since Data Visualization is so hot right now. Anyway, here’s an interactive map showing ridership of the NYC subway system from 1905 to now. The map is by Sha Hwang, a visual design technologist at Stamen Design in San Francisco. Check it out

Nice work, Mr Hwang.

In 17 days, our first beta release of FreeTime will come out. Also our new website. Pressure’s on.

This is directly between mark's desk and my desk.

We have a design philosophy here at Graphient. It’s actually encoded right into our mission statement. The relevant bit is the part about making tools simple enough for any user but powerful enough for business and science. We’re making a tool that does very complex, powerful things and it needs to appear to the casual user that it does them in a very simple and straightforward way. At the same time, if someone puts the effort in to learn our software, complexity and depth should be revealed to him or her proportionally to their understanding of the tool.

After going through a lot of different metaphors in seeking to explain this philosophy to people outside the company I have settled on this: The ideal user interface is like a kiddy pool that is a mile deep. Anyone one should be able to jump in and paddle around, but an experienced user should be able to dive deep in.

I would say that FreeTime, our first product comes close to this ideal. We’re still going to have to include some set up assistants to help people along initially. To push our metaphor a little too far, these will be like flotation devices for novice swimmers.

More on that as it develops.

We have a mission statement here at Graphient. It took us a fair amount of time and a lot of re-writes to work it out properly. One reason it took so long was some confusion on my part about what a mission statement really is. It seemed pretty obvious to me that our mission as hardheaded businessmen was to make huge amounts of money. Or, put another way, to become profitable in a timely manner and maximize shareholder value. Turns out those aren’t missions, and they cannot be used to accurately measure the success of the enterprise or to motivate those involved.

We finally worked it out as “Graphient’s mission is to provide everyone in the world with platforms for the organization and visualization of information that are simple enough for any home user, but powerful enough for research, science, and business.”

There’s nothing in there about profitability, and were we a Silicon Valley company we might be content to end this conversation here and go play frisbee with our dog or something. Fortunately we live in New York, and if living here has taught us anything, it is that if you don’t make enough money for rent and food, you have to move back to whatever provincial backwater you came from.

That’s a round about way of saying that one of the tests for whether or not you are a company or just a bunch of guys sitting in room together engaged in company-like behavior is profitability. Profit is the test that must be met. It is what validates the mission, and without it you don’t have an enterprise, you have a meme.

Blogging about your first start-up is a funny proposition. You have a lot of opinions and ideas about what you’re doing and how you’re doing it, but there’s no identifiable reason why anyone should listen to you yap about them. You may have an engaging prose style or whatever, but you haven’t done anything yet to distinguish yourself from every other opinionated clown who thinks his company is going to change the world.

That thing, The Win, whatever it is, hasn’t come yet. And without it you are just a (possibly) smart, (possibly) charming voice chattering away in the vast digital wilderness. Worse, small victories don’t seem to count. And they shouldn’t, incremental gain (while it builds a strong foundation for your business) isn’t enough to distiguish your voice from all the others. It is not enough to make you extra-ordinary, not enough to make you what Seth Godin calls a Purple Cow, not enough to make you remarkable. You have to really smack it out of the park for it to count as The Win.

Nevertheless, we’re going to blog about the process we’re going through. If we do get The Win, this will stand as a record of the process that brought us there, and if we don’t it will stand as a testament to the lessons we learned.