Beauty versus utility

“Information is beautiful, but beauty is not enough.” So said Jo Wood, professor of visual analytics at City University, speaking at this morning’s MRS Annual Conference.

Wood took us through his London Bicycle Hire project – featured in Research’s recent data visualisation supplement – which mapped the 20m journeys people have made between the 600 different bike hire locations in the city.

The result is a stunning motion graphic, however Wood was at pains to point out that “there is a difference between impactful visualisation and useful analytical visualisations”.