Baby Names, Visualization, and Social Data Analysis

The NameVoyager, a web-based visualization of historical trends in baby naming, has proven remarkably popular. This paper discusses the display techniques used for smooth visual exploration of thousands of time series and the application's simple keyboard-based mechanism for filtering the view. We also describe design decisions behind the application and lessons learned in creating an application that makes do-it-yourself data mining fun. The prime lesson, it is hypothesized, is that a webbased information visualization is fruitfully viewed not as a tool but as part of an online social environment. In other words, to design a successful exploratory data analysis tool, one good strategy is to create a system that enables “social” data analysis. CR Categories and Subject Descriptors: Design Study, TimeVarying Data Visualization, Human-Computer Interaction

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2005
• Where: INFOVIS
• Authors: Martin Wattenberg
• Keywords: Data Analysis, INFOVIS 2005, Simple Keyboard-based Mechanism, Visualization, Webbased Information Visualization