Mycrocosm: Visual Microblogging
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Mycrocosm: Visual Microblogging Yannick Assogba Judith Donath MIT Media Lab MIT Media Lab 20 Ames Street, Cambridge MA 20 Ames Street, Cambridge MA [email protected] [email protected] Abstract like other microblogging services, users add data in This paper introduces Mycrocosm, a micro- short but frequent entries; like other micro-blogging blogging site in which users communicate via statis- and status-updating systems, our goal is for people to tical graphics, rather than the usual short text state- use this tool as a medium for self-expression. Our ments. Users of Mycrocosm can record everyday goal in creating Mycrocosm is to explore more “personal statistics” and share this information in graphical approaches to human interpersonal com- the form of simple graphs and charts. People have munication than existing tools. used it to track how they got to work and how long it Graphics are becoming part of everyday com- took, what colour clothes they wore, how often they munication for ordinary individuals. While we are 2 3 checked their Facebook updates, how often a col- familiar with sites like Flickr , Zoomr and Youtube, league shows up late, and many other trends and Mcdonald [8] has done a deeper study on the use of events. Mycrocosm raises awareness of the strong yet image (primarily photographic) as a conversation tool subtle effect a medium has upon the messages it con- in web communities and identified six broad catego- veys. Most computer based communication interfaces ries of visual conversation styles in those communi- are text based, so while the conduit is computational, ties; reaffirming our belief that more graphical alter- the medium is not far different from a typewriter. natives to text conversation are indeed practical. Mycrocosm, by using easily updated statistical Ordinary individuals are also increasingly ex- graphs, creates an easy to use and understand me- posed to info-graphics as a means of communication. dium that nevertheless is quite different from other Publications such as the New York Times increas- forms of communication, both direct and computer ingly use info-graphics to support their stories [12] mediated. and we observe an increasing use of info-graphic style in pop culture and advertising [9], [13]. Web 4 5 6 sites such as ManyEyes , Swivel and TrackNGraph put tools for data analysis and information visualiza- 1. Introduction tion in the hands of ordinary web users. Although information graphics are becoming in- The primary language of the web is, and has creasingly common, their use is still primarily utili- been for a long time, text. Recently, we have seen the tarian: when we think of information graphics, it is delivery and adoption of other forms of media on the 1 usually in the context of “serious” data. Pousman et web mature greatly. Sites such as Youtube have al [11], have identified casual information visualiza- made the consumption and creation of video widely tion systems as a distinct subgroup of tradition infor- accessible. Photo-sharing sites play a similar role for mation visualization systems noting four core differ- static images while contemporary social network ences between the two, particularly with respect to sites blend image, sound, video and text to create rich their “user population, usage pattern, data type and spaces for social interaction. The landscape for media insight”. Mycrocosm is better situated in this model rich interpersonal communication has greatly broad- of casual infovis systems as it is entirely designed to ened, and it is within this landscape that we situate be a social space where visualization techniques are our system, a microblogging site that appropriates the used as graphical tools for self-expression. visual language of statistics. Mycrocosm is a web service that allows users to track and share everyday “personal statistics” using simple graphs and charts to display their data. We 2 http://flickr.com describe Mycrocosm as a visual microblog because, 3 http://www.zoomr.com 4http://services.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/home 5 http://www.swivel.com/ 1 http://youtube.com 6 http://www.trackngraph.com/www/ We also live in a world where issues of personal tations of songs and pop culture memes, made using data collection, control, and use are becoming in- tools like Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Visio or Google creasingly important. Our representation of people as docs. These examples give strong evidence that this their data seems appropriate to the current techno- particular visual form is adaptable to non-traditional, logical climate in encouraging people to think to the social and communicative uses. people of how data collected about themselves can be used. This paper will describe the function and design of the Mycrocosm web application, giving some ex- amples of how it is used. We shall also situate our work with respect to current social and artistic prac- tices that engage with data as representation and aes- thetic. Finally we shall discuss our motivations in creating this application and future directions that this work could take. 2. Related Work 2.1. Visualization in popular culture Figure 1 - Graph produced by user of graph- jam Sites such as ManyEyes and Swivel place visu- alization tools in the hands of ordinary web users, 2.2. Microblogging users are able to upload data sets to these sites and collectively analyze and annotate them. While the Mycrocosm also relates to the practice of mi- primary focus on these sites is on collective data an- croblogging. Through microblogging, and in blog- alysis of complex or large data sets, Viegas et al [14] ging at large, people are presented with the oppor- conclude that, “users are reinventing visualization tunity to “say what is on their mind” and engage in technology for social and personal purposes”. My- discourse over the Internet. According to the Pew crocosm aims to create a sociable visualization tool Internet & American life project, 44% of US Internet that takes this newer use case as its goal. users have created content online [6]. Nardi, Schiano Another area from which our work is informed and Gumbrecht [10] have examined peoples’ use of our work is artistic approaches to the visualization of and motivations for blogging, while more recently personal data. Artists and designers are using per- Java et al. [5] have looked at usage patterns within sonal data and a data driven aesthetic to explore our Twitter8. Much blogging is done primarily as a social individual and societal relationships to creating, re- activity. From simply keeping people aware of ones cording and publishing personal ‘data’. At the same activities (exciting or banal) to publishing thoughts time these artists suggest new ways at which we can and opinions to ones’ small but attentive audience, to look at notions of identity. Ellie Harrison is an artist everyday chatter, these tools function as spaces for whose practice engages directly with personal data social interaction for a large and ever increasing collection. Her works include “Eat 22” in which she number of people. photographed everything she ate for a year, and pro- Microblogging is a relatively recent form of jects where she counted how often she sneezed or blogging. Here, users publish very short entries about wrote down what she was thinking every time she what they are doing or thinking at a given moment. had a cup of tea [4]. Craig Robinson created “Per- Mycroscosm is similar to text microblogs in that each sonal Pies” a set of pie-charts the recount various entry takes a minimal amount of effort, thus making aspects of his life from birth to adulthood [7] which it easy to frequently update, and also being of a scale provides an excellent example of the use of statistical that encourages posting about mundane activities. visual language in an expressive manner. Nicholas However, text microblogs focus on the “now” – they Felton is a graphic designer who for the past three are about what you are doing now. Mycrocosm is years has compiled yearly “Annual Reports” detail- also about trends over time, accumulations of infor- ing numerous minutiae from the past year in a richly mation – each entry may be about now, but the dis- designed booklet [1]. More broadly we can observe play extends into the past. the appropriation of visualization tools on sites like GraphJam7 [3] where users upload graphical interpre- 8 http://twitter.com - One of the most popular text based microb- 7 http://www.graphjam.com logging sites. 3. How it Works Mycrocosm users create and update data charts. The charts can be about anything – what they ate for dinner, what time they got up, whether they wore eye shadow that day and so on. Charts are publicly dis- played on the Mycrocosm site unless the user speci- fies that chart to be private. Each user has a home page that displays the charts they have created in re- verse chronological order (fig 2), currently users can- not re-order their charts but this is certainly a planned feature to enable users to more effectively use multi- ple graphs together to communicate a message. The Mycrocosm front page also displays recently updated publicly visible charts, as well as a list of users sorted by the amount of content they have on the site (fig 3). Mycrocosm charts (the front page and user’s pages) are visible to visitors of the site without requiring login, this is aimed at making it easier to share graphs once created. Users create and update charts from the site itself or from their mobile phone, all via short text entries. Figure 3 - Mycrocosm main page Given the audience and use pattern Mycrocosm was conceived for, its design strives towards simplicity in both data entry and options for visualization.