Periscopic Now

The VAST Challenge is a data visualization contest that occurs every year as part of the IEEE VisWeek Conference. This year’s challenge dealt with three datasets: illegal arms trading, hospitalization records, and gene mutation. We chose to address hospitalization records and visualizing the spread of a pandemic.

Not surprisingly, the bulk of the work was cleaning up and organizing the data. Records from disparate entities tend to have little resemblance to one another. Unfortunately, this means that analysis of data across these entities is time consuming, if feasible at all.

We looked at ways to enable early detection of epidemics and .... read on ›

Yesterday, we launched the fourth in a series of holiday infographics for Adaptu.

This infographic conveys the percentage of Americans that received food assistance in 2009, as well as how powerful monetary donations are. You can see how varied amounts ($1, $25, $50, and $100) can make a significant difference to those in need.

Check out the infographic at Adaptu’s site.

The third infographic we developed for Adaptu.com has just been launched.

This week’s topic focuses on holiday lighting and the hidden cost of energy use when powering incandescent bulbs instead of LED bulbs.

You can check out the whole thing here at Adaptu’s site.

We partnered with Adaptu.com, a personal finance website and community, to create a set of 5 holiday infographics. Take a look at the first 3:

1. Throwing a Holiday Dinner Party
2. Holiday Travel
3. Holiday Lighting
4. to be announced
5. to be announced

Here’s a look at the second in a set of five infographics we designed for Adaptu.com.

This week’s piece takes a look at ways to save money by avoiding the most popular travel itineraries, and shows that the money saved could almost pay your electric bill for a whole month.

Check out the whole post on the Adaptu site.

We recently partnered with Adaptu.com, a great new personal finance web site and community that “provides a new way for you to see and understand your entire financial picture (including everything from spending habits, to your bills, to your investments)”, to develop five holiday-themed infographics.

Each infographic was designed to reveal ways of saving money during the coming holiday season, and the first week takes a look at budgeting for a dinner party for 10.

Check out the entire graphic on the Adaptu site.

Our own Kim Rees will be speaking at the Strata Conference in Santa Clara on February 2nd, 2011.

Kim’s presentation, Small is the New Big: Lessons in Visual Economy will cover many aspects of data visualization, including:

• Telling smaller stories with the data
• Encapsulating the design by choosing related data
• Designing for multiple encodings
• Abstracting visual context for brevity
• Working within constraints
• Goal-based visualization
• Small multiples

Read more about her presentation and register for the conference on the Strata web site.

Bonus fact: Portland’s own Amber Case will also be speaking.  Go team!

Periscopic’s founder, Kim Rees will be one of the presenters at AIGA’s Shift 5 event on Wednesday Novemebr 18th, starting at 7:00 PM at the Ecotrust building here in Portland.

Kim will be speaking about conservation and sustainability in the interactive world, and here’s a bit more from the AIGA web site:

Join AIGA Portland on Thursday, November 18th for SHIFT 5 — an event to inform, inspire and engage peers, clients and students about sustainable design thinking and practices. Ten presenters will briefly share their observations, ideas and even challenges in shaping the future of visual communications.

Read the .... read on ›

Today, it’s almost essential for a business to have an online presence: not just a website, but to tap into social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. It’s a lot more work to keep up on these services than most businesses realize or have time for, often resulting in haphazard sites, messy marketing, and poor interactions with clients. Unfortunately, as a consumer, I almost never receive a reply to my comments. Occasionally, a business will respond with, “Thanks for the feedback!” But it feels more like a stock response that could easily be substituted with, “Thanks for signing up!” or, “Thanks for filling out the form!” So you .... read on ›

Thanks to Flowing Data for Spotlighting VoteEasy.org:

Do you know who you’ll be voting for this year? It can be tough deciding with all of the different issues and candidates. The commercials on TV don’t exactly help all that much either. VoteEasy, brought to you by Project Vote Smart and developed by Portland-based design firm Periscopic, helps you make an educated decision. Input the issues that matter to you, like abortion, public healthcare, or capital punishment, and VoteEasy will show you the candidates who best match your ideals in your area.

The best part about VoteEasy is that it actually does .... read on ›

We’re very happy to say that VoteEasy.org was selected by Communication Arts as their Webpick of the Week (W.O.W.)!

From their site:

This voter education tool allows the general public to easily see how closely political candidates align with their views on twelve key issues. Fun, animated and helpful, it utilizes thousands of hours of research and a vast collection of data assembled by the nonpartisan group, Project Vote Smart. It’s the most up-to-date resource for candidate political information and includes voting records, interest group ratings, campaign finances and personal biographies.

The cornerstone of Project Vote Smart’s voter-education campaign for the 2010 .... read on ›