It's tough to start a new blog. You hear people wondering 'Really? Do we need another one of these?', but I guess my answer would be yes. do.minik.us has been around for a while now, but so far it's only been a place to publish more information on my (mostly scientific) projects than a regular paper template would allow me. But now that I've left my scientific career behind me and started out as a freelance data visualization and mobile interaction designer (still have to find a shorter title), I think it's only fitting to start with a relaunch of my website and the inclusion of a blog. Because we need to talk!
One of the most interesting and challenging areas that I've encountered while creating visualizations in the past was how to adapt them to our changing habits. People no longer sit in front of their PCs all day and interact using mouse and keyboard - they're on the go, playing with their phones, hanging out with friends. And their data comes with them and they need a proper way to access it.
Touchable visualizations is my term for describing data visualizations that are purely controlled through touch. No shortcuts via buttons or a keyboard - just the data and your fingertips. This in an exciting new development in the traditionally very interface-heavy world of visualizations. It's common to see visualization products rivaling Photoshop in the amount of buttons crammed into their small windows which is no longer possible with small(er), portable touchscreen devices.
It's still rare to find really well-done touchable visualizations and there's only little work in academia on this topic. So in this blog I will try to get a discussion going and help touchable visualizations off the ground. I will highlight some of the recent developments, but also talk about best practices, some of my ideas and present some of the experiments that I did in this area. And most of all I look forward to your input, your feedback and your fantastic ideas!