Intriguing! Isn’t it? The above chart is a representation of the results of a year long quantified self project of diabetes control. It plots the blood sugar levels of Doug, who conducted the experiment, the day for the year 2012 and also shows us the miles ran on that day. At the first glance I couldn’t say that something this pretty could actually mean something this serious.
Doug has been a diabetic patient for 32years now, 2012 as he claims was the healthiest year of his life and he proves it through the results of his experiment. He tracked every blood sugar readings, every insulin dose, every meal and all my activity data. He certainly in his visualisation has covered the dimensions of data visualisation. To list a few : The chart is visually appealing to the audience and hence has the beauty dimension covered, it contains his personal experiences and hence insightful and his results definitely encourages other patients to work towards blood sugar control and hence enlightening.
Getting into the details, the chart answers your describe questions : What? Blood sugar level and miles ran, When? Year 2012, Who? Doug. Also answering you the explanatory questions: Why ? To control diabetes, How? By self tracking and exercise. It hasn’t stepped back from predicting that this procedure helps you lead a healthier life and prescribing self tracking and exercise to diabetes patients. Not only has he plotted his test results and miles ran, but has noted the important life events helping us get a better understanding to his story he is trying to tell us through his chart.
What amazes me the most is that this chart contains the data from 91,251 blood sugar readings.The month initials in the inner circle is really helpful to track the time period. Having said all the positive reviews that had me awestruck at this piece of art,I however can spot a drawback. While the choice of colour is what makes this chart art, the choice of having white is what creates a problem.It makes it difficult for the audience to connect the warm and cold colours and hence not easy to know the minimum and maximum blood sugar per day. A smoother transition would be more effective.If i were to redo this it would be the only thing I would change about the visualisation.
A picture is worth a thousand words, indeed! However today we see data visualisation done as modern art. Many times the main purpose of the visualisation is lost, the chart is now beautiful but means nothing to the audience other than an appealing visual to your eye.The chart above shows us that we can use the tinniest dimension such as colour and create art while also telling our story. The chart should catch the audience’s attention but must have the content to keep them wanting to know the story.
Please do visit the site to get a better view of the images : http://databetic.com/?p=304