Please, no more gauges: How not to visualise data.

Have you ever had someone show you an "awesome" visualisation tool, only to realise out that it actually makes it much harder to interpret the data? The infamous fuel-gauge? How about a 3D pie chart? Or those shiny gradients used in so many bar charts? This talk will try to equip you with the arguments you need to prevent these devices from rearing their heads. We will laugh at useless visualisations, and marvel at amazing ones.

I do not claim to be an expert in the field of data visualisation, but do take a keen interest in its academic side. I enjoy being able to look at a visualisation tool, comment on why it may or may not be appropriate for a given job, and then provide a better alternative. Most of the resources and ideas out there just make sense, and I'd like to share them with you. If you deal with presenting data to users and have never heard of people like Edward Tufte, than this talk is for you. If you have already been enthralled by Tufte's writing or others in the field, then you are more than welcome to come and join the discussion. You don't need to be an arts graduate to enjoy good visualisation and laugh at bad visualisation.

THANKS TO EVERYONE FOR COMING ALONG :)
I've uploaded the talk to http://peter.serwylo.com/archive/talks/osdc/2010/ and hopefully we can get it uploaded to http://osdc.blip.tv at some point.

cheers,
pete.

All delegates attending this session must bring and ensure: