Presentation vs. Exploration
Giving a clear separation between presentation graphics and graphics for data exploration is not always easy, because many aspects of the graphics are shared by both types. I very much liked the distinction Antony Unwin gave during one of his latest talks.
The difference is quite obvious when you look at the ratio of graphics and observers. In presentation graphics we need to build very few - or even just one - graphics for very many (potentially quite different) observer. In exploration graphics often a single researcher looks at a lot of graphics, which only make sense as a linked ensemble.
Any further thoughts ...?
My first thought is to ask what is lost or compromised when we treat presentational modes and exploratory modes (i.e., inquiry) as distinct and separable. I mean that the presentational graphic, in keeping with whatever warrants their separation, would be stabilized in its meaning and ready for shared interpretation wherein it's likely that audiences would agree to its significance. The exploratory graphic, on the other hand, seems to me to be more provisional, even rough (unsettled relative to what it represents). But your entry has me thinking about the hybrids, the graphics that do both, circulating widely as presentational graphics would while also prompting co-inquiry and an exploratory stance in relationship to the data and theories bridged by the model. (Comment this)
asking for hybrids is, what I think, a valid question. The US Cancer Atlas in its online version (http://cancercontrolplanet.cancer.gov/atlas/index.jsp) is somehow in between.
Nonetheless, I am afraid that a compromise between the two views always is less powerful than one of the extremes, when used in an appropriate way. There is the french saying: A compromise is perfect if every side is finally unhappy with the result.
Martin (Comment this)
the critical point about most presentations is that somebody else chooses the time you are allowed to look at it. If people have been rushed by previous views, they would not take
their time to delve into the details of something like Minard's diagram.
That's one reason for me to sometimes prefer posters over talks. If only you could be sure
you can find your poster at a more central place than down the cellar with the broken lights and stairs behind the closet door labelled "beware of the leopard".
Johannes (Comment this)