Hey Analyst!

tl;dr Twitter is still for the techies: articles where the number of tweets greatly outnumber FB likes tend to revolve around software companies and programming. Facebook, on the other hand, appeals to everyone else: yeah, to the masses, and to non-software technical folks in general as well.

via Tweets vs. Likes: What gets shared on Twitter vs. Facebook? – Edwin Chen’s Blog.

Using Google Earth satellite imagery, we captured a ‘snapshot’ of where people live and estimated ‘net densities’ by systematically tracing the built-up area of each metropolitan region – including central zones, satellite towns and the peripheral areas (a detailed methodology can be found online). The fact that 23 million people in Manila occupy a space one eighth the size of the same number of New Yorkers, or that Atlanta in the USA is 25 times larger than Hong Kong with roughly the same population, says something about the capacity and resilience of urban form as well as physical and geographical constraints.

via Measuring the Human Urban Footprint | Articles | LSE Cities.

1. Focus on the Why, Then the How

2. Avoid Unnecessary Illustration

3. Make Data Design Part of Your Brand.

via The 3 Keys to Designing More Effective Data Visualizations | MSDS.

Air is not the same everywhere. Across the extremes of the human environment, in both urban areas and wild, powerful natural and human forces combine to create intricate mixtures of chemicals that compose the air we breathe, seek for pleasure, or avoid. And now that air is made audible.

via Soundscapes of Smog: Researchers Let You Hear the Pollution of Cities Literally – Aaron Reuben and Gabriel Isaacman – The Atlantic.

How do people perceive information? How designers can thrive on this process to help people understand data faster? Let’s try to look into this complex field and explore some basic principles.

via Visual Encoding.

Now Felice C. Frankel and Angela H. DePace are offering some help. They bill their new book, “Visual Strategies,” as a guide to graphics for scientists and engineers, but it will be useful for anyone who wants to make clear presentations of data of any kind.“Images engage us in ways that words cannot,” they write. But they add that creating a graphic is like writing an article. You must plan what to say, in what order, with what details. The message of this book is that the extra effort is well worth it.

via ‘Visual Strategies’ Transforms Data Into Art That Speaks – NYTimes.com.