Visualizing Data – What’s so special about Minards Map?

I think the key take away from Lin’s presentation is that good data visualization should strive to be both informative, and easy to understand. In other words when designing a graphic, it is important to think about how best communicate your conclusions. Part of what makes Minard’s map of Napoleons retreat from Moscow so ingenious is how it juggles many variables while still being approachable (albeit, it is written in French). The graphic uses data describing date, temperature, geographic location, army size, to tell a compelling narrative about the effect climate and geography on napoleons failed campaign to invade Russia.

What I particularly like about it, is how represents the changes in the size of napoleons force. As we talked about in class, graphics that use only one axis allow for more effective comparisons to be made (i.e. rectangles are better than circles). In Minards map the change in the width of the rectangles is representative of change in napoleons forces. However, these changes are also transcribed over a map/timeline. This allows for interesting insights. For instance, you can observe how the size of napoleons force changed when they crossed a river, and large changes can be explained by a portion of napoleons force splitting off from the main army. Additionally, the rectangles are colored to indicate whether napoleon was attacking or retreating. It is brilliant!

Not all digital humanities projects will need complicated a graphic like Minards map, but I think I will be important to apply some of what we have learned. There are a lot of ways to display data, but readability is important. As we discussed in class, it is easy to make a misleading representation of data. In our class we will have to be very careful with how organize and present data on our projects.