Data Visualization
topic
Data visualization as creative input provides access to the intelligence embedded in large datasets through the specific form of visual representation — encountering complex patterns in human behavior, natural phenomena, historical processes, and systemic dynamics through the visual medium that makes invisible patterns in data perceptually accessible, and developing the specific literacy of visual statistical reasoning.
Role
Data visualization is the creative input that most directly develops the ability to see pattern at scale — to perceive the structural regularities in large, complex systems that individual observation cannot reveal. The creator who has extensively explored data visualization — Edward Tufte's work, Hans Rosling's data storytelling, New York Times interactive journalism — has developed a specific form of pattern literacy: the ability to read visual representations of complex reality at multiple levels of abstraction simultaneously, a skill that transfers to creative work in any domain that involves representing complex phenomena.