Timothy Kunau shows “mountains of data” as a way to present information so others can absorb it.

As a person who perceives the world in terms of color, shape, and line, I knew that the two sessions on data visualization at the Bioinformatics Technology Conference were a “must see” for me.

The vast amounts of information that molecular biologists must manage as part of their effort to explore the human genome is astounding. In my world, when we talk about parsing data, we’re usually referring to a process that runs over the course of minutes. In the world of bioinformatics, a data run can take days.

But then, once you compile your data, how do you look at it? And even more important, how do you present it so others working on the project can quickly understand it?

In the session, “Genomic Data Visualization,” Timothy Kunau called it “moving from data to story.” Not only did he discuss the use of color and shape to represent information, but he addressed the use of metaphors too, such as computer-generated mountains that vaguely represent the geological structures we see in the natural landscape.

Kunau also made the point that when you’re trying to absorb this much information, you cannot have a picture that’s too big. In other words, visualizing data on your laptop isn’t going to cut it. So he showed us how presentations that span giant 3′ x 5′ monitors are much more effective for scientists, especially in the team setting. One of the more impressive tools was a large, immersive screen that rendered three-dimensional visualizations when observers wore 3D glasses.

After spending time with Kunau, and John Hotchkiss the hour before in his excellent “Interactive Data Visualization” class, I was fortunate enough to have lunch with Timothy Allis, a conference attendee who provides scientific computing support at UC Davis.

Timothy explained to me that the combination of color and shape can communicate amazing amounts of information that can be absorbed quickly. And that just the opposite is true for poorly presented material.

For example, if you’re looking for a person in a crowd, it’s difficult to pick him out if he’s dressed just like the others. Trying to decipher poorly presented data feels the same way. But, if you were able to attire the person in distinct colors and add a hat or some other distinguishing characteristic, then suddenly he’s easier to find.

The effective use of color and shape can make large projects such as studying the human genome run more efficient. As Timothy said, “You want to be spending your time on understanding the data, not trying to figure out the graph.” Wasted minutes really add up over the long haul.

How true this is! Think about the bar graphs you produce for staff meetings, the web pages for your customers, or even the pictures you take to share your vacations with friends. How well do they use color, shape, and composition to communicate key information?

By looking at the challenges in the world of bioinformatics, I realized that there’s lots of room for improvement in my own, much more humble, visual world. For one thing, I know I’ll never look at Excel graphs the same way again.

There’s some exciting stuff going on in the world of data visualization. What have you discovered?