Welcome back to the show! This week, I sit down with three co-authors of the Atlas of Macroscopes—Katy Borner, Elizabeth Record, and Todd Theriault from the Cyberinfrastructure for Network Science Center at Indiana University—to explore what a macroscope actually is and how it differs from a standard interactive visualization. We trace the 20-year journey of the Places and Spaces: Mapping Science exhibit, from two-dimensional wall maps to the 40 richly interactive pieces featured in this stunning 11×14-inch MIT Press book. Along the way, we talk about design strategies for making complex systems legible to general audiences, the role of AI in data visualization, and what it takes to grab and hold attention on a museum floor. Each guest shares a personal favorite from the book—ranging from Smelly Maps to an Appalachian opioid overdose tool to a skills-landscape explorer—and we close with a look at the exhibit’s exciting third decade, focused on visualizing intelligences.
Resources
Atlas of Macroscopes | Places and Spaces: Mapping Science exhibit | Call for Submissions (3rd decade – Visualizing Intelligences)
Guest Bio
Katy Borner, Elizabeth Record, and Todd Theriault Katy Borner is the Victor H. Yngve Distinguished Professor of Engineering and Information Science at Indiana University, where she has worked for 29 years. A pioneer in information visualization, she is co-author of the Atlas of Macroscopes and has spent two decades advancing macroscope theory and tooling. Elizabeth Record is a co-curator of the Places and Spaces: Mapping Science exhibit at Indiana University’s Cyberinfrastructure for Network Science (CNS) Center, where she has worked alongside Borner and Theriault for over a decade. Todd Theriault is a co-curator of both the Places and Spaces exhibit and the new Envisioning Intelligences exhibit at IU’s CNS Center.
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Transcript
00:01.78
Jon
Okay, I’ve got the full team. This is very exciting. i mean, not often do I get like a big crowd for a podcast. Elizabeth, Cotty, Todd, thanks so much for coming on the show. I’m excited to talk about ah your book and your work. um But let’s start with let’s start with introductions. So folks know who they’re listening to or watching if they’re on YouTube, but you know probably listening. um Why don’t we start with Elizabeth and we can go around the room.
00:28.70
Lisel Record
So hi, I’m Elizabeth Record. I have worked with my colleagues here, Cottey Borner and Todd Theriel, for over 10 years now curating the Places and Spaces Mapping Science exhibit, um which is an outreach activity of the Cyber Infrastructure for Network Science Center here at Indiana University.
00:50.08
todd theriault
Todd Theriault Yeah, and I’m Todd Theriault and I course work with Elizabeth and Cottey at the CNS Center. I do a number of things there. But for the purpose of this podcast, I’m co curator of the places and spaces exhibit and the new envisioning intelligences exhibit.
01:06.55
Jon
Okay.
01:06.68
Katy Borner
I am Katty Borna, Indiana University. have been with Indiana University for 29 years now. a true pleasure to be here. And as part of this all, we have been building data visualization tools and also advancing theory so that it’s easier for anyone to render data into actionable knowledge.
01:27.54
Katy Borner
For the last two decades, I have been really fascinated by macroscopes as they give us illuminating and holistic views of our ever-changing world. And it’s really a pleasure to be here with my co-authors to introduce the Atlas of Macroscopes to you
01:44.15
Jon
Very excited to have you all on the show, especially because you’ve got the Atlas of Macroscopes t-shirts on, um which, you know, I’m sure there’s a, I’m sure there’s a website out there somewhere where someone can get their own copy.
01:49.30
Katy Borner
all.
01:53.80
Jon
But um so I want to start by getting into this term macroscope. So, how do you define a macroscope and what separates it from just like a really good interactive visualization online?
02:08.61
Lisel Record
That’s a good question. You’re right. There’s a lot of overlap. Um, macroscopes are interactive visualizations that serve as interfaces to data.
02:14.38
Katy Borner
Thank you.
02:16.86
Lisel Record
Um, so in many cases we’re dealing with large, large data sets. So more so than maybe just any interactive visualization would. Um, so yeah, you’re right. There’s a lot of overlap between the two, but where we see the difference is, um, that macroscopes help us view complex systems.
02:33.35
Lisel Record
at multiple scales. So they’re in a sense, another type of a scope, like a microscope would help you look at things that are really small. A telescope would help you look at things that are are that are far away.
02:45.92
Lisel Record
And a microscope will help us see things that are complex, like a systems view that will let you get sort of a view of things that are maybe too large or too complex or too slow to look at with the naked eye.
02:52.08
Jon
Mm-hmm.
02:59.77
Lisel Record
So that’s um that’s kind of how we differentiate the two. The the the term comes from Joel de Rosne, although it’s been used in other areas for since the 1950s in different uses. But we we were inspired by Joel de Rosne’s definition, who envised who envisioned their use as tools for observing what is at once too great, too slow, and too complex for our eyes.
03:26.90
Lisel Record
They tend to focus on multifactor and multimodal datasets, and they can be really powerful tools for looking at complex topics.
03:39.67
Jon
So does it, does it by, I guess by definition require big data and, or like I guess it big data and, or complex data, or do you need both?
03:39.87
todd theriault
you
03:53.22
Lisel Record
That’s a good question. I don’t know how you would feel about that, Kati and Todd. I think we could probably.
03:57.98
Katy Borner
I think it works at all scales and levels.
04:00.50
Jon
Yeah.
04:01.78
Katy Borner
Microscopes also are oftentimes modular, so you can plug and play in new algorithms, new data sets, because new data sets and algorithms become available every single week. So that it needs to be extendable in order to be useful and actionable.
04:11.47
Jon
Mm-hmm.
04:15.83
Katy Borner
And I think to answer that question, I think there can be a very small data set that’s hugely important for making good decisions. And then there can be a really big complex data set that needs to be wrangled and ultimately made so that human beings can gain insights from it.
04:37.33
Katy Borner
I think we are typically made for local and rather short-term decision making.
04:37.83
Jon
Mm-hmm.
04:42.21
Katy Borner
And what we want here is to empower many human beings to make more long-term and global decisions because that’s what we are doing on our planet.
04:51.35
Jon
e Yeah. And I want to come to and and a bit, come to where these pieces, at least the ones that, that, that are featured in the book, there’s many more, but the ones that are featured in the book where they are situated, because this sort of hyper-local, but this sort of big macro perspective is, I think an interesting sort of dichotomy of how people interact with them versus what they are showing. But before we get to that, um,
05:18.14
Jon
you kind of can’t have any conversation these days without, ah without talking about AI. So I wanted to talk about AI. So does AI change what a macroscope is? um Does it change how people build with, ah build them? Does it change how people interact with them? Like, you know, it’s exhausting to talk about AI all the time, but I think kind of feel like, you know, with these sorts of pieces, we kind of need to.
05:42.58
Katy Borner
Yeah, absolutely. And I think many of the macroscopes have been using advanced machine learning techniques to lay out the data, to wrangle the data, to have people interact with data in new ways, also ne natural language interfaces. And then coming over to tool development, which the exhibit exhibit is also aiming to inspire and tool usage by anyone. Anyone can map, we believe. um I think it’s fascinating to see how you can use large language models today to create a data frame, to analyze and visualize that data, to optimize these data visualizations in a very natural, non-programming based way.
06:22.29
Katy Borner
And so in the and data visualization course we teach here at IU to um about 100, 130 students every spring, We have a setup where students are actually asked to use large language models to do temporal, tropical, geospatial and network analysis and visualizations and to use natural language interfaces, prompt engineering to optimize these data visualizations.
06:39.94
Jon
Mm-hmm.
06:45.73
Katy Borner
And I think that’s also what they will do when they go out in industry or if they continue research in academia or government. And so I think we absolutely need to embrace that new tool and technology and ultimately make it useful so that we still gain also our own knowledge and wisdom and make our own good decisions, but also have a better tool at hand.
07:10.26
Jon
And one thing that’s been um sort of knocking around in my brain lately is There was this sort of, we had a lot of, ah you know, a few years ago, maybe maybe like pre pandemic, we had a lot of these big bespoke ah data visualizations, right? Interactive pieces. I think a lot that sort of like, you know, sort of similar to some of the pieces that are in in the macroscope, in the Atlas book. um And then it seemed that people moved, ah you know, clients and companies moved away from that and moved to more, you know, single graphs, maybe scrolly telling things that are a little bit more contained. um
07:48.54
Jon
I wonder whether you think AI brings us back to more of these bigger, bespoke, creative visualizations, because the AI tools can whip up a dashboard really quickly now. And, you know, maybe they’re not as fancy or in-depth as someone, you know, someone who knows what they’re doing in Tableau or Power BI. But, you know, for a basic dashboard, it could spin it up very quickly. And I’m i’m curious whether you whether you all think that we’re maybe going to return to some of those bespoke, that kind of bespoke era of custom visualizations that have like a really creative bent to them.
08:25.92
Katy Borner
I know to has a lot to to say about scrolly stories.
08:28.79
Jon
ah
08:29.93
Lisel Record
Thank you.
08:30.00
Katy Borner
We all three are fans of those. And I think it is a great way to introduce a data set a problem and then walk people through the different steps that it takes from the initial data, which oftentimes needs cleaning and analysis and modeling and more cleaning and more analysis and then having a final visualization that’s actionable.
08:32.66
Jon
Yeah.
08:47.45
Katy Borner
So I think I leave that to Todd. But on the um question, can they help with complex data? I think so. We recently did a number of analysis of our website traffic, and it was amazing to see how quickly dashboards come about, how easily they can be optimized, and how actionable ultimately these dashboards are for optimizing website traffic, for instance.
09:11.02
Jon
Mm-hmm.
09:11.40
Katy Borner
And so, um yes, absolutely. Again, we should embrace that because then human usage and human intelligence can be used to spend time on how what traffic do you really want on a website, um especially an academic one where it’s not just about getting to the entering your credit card information site.
09:31.34
Katy Borner
And also in learning environment, if you can now run learning analytics using large language models, that’s huge because you can identify different learning cohorts, you can try to serve the needs of these different cohorts and ultimately optimize um learning content on Canvas, for instance, or any other course development site to the needs of these different learners.
09:56.04
Katy Borner
So i’m I’m super excited about the possibilities that now exist.
09:56.74
Jon
OK. Todd, do you have you have strong feelings on scurrely-telling?
10:02.97
todd theriault
ah I like scrolly tally. I mean, um you know, I would say that one of the things that I like about the that I think are really strong about the macroscopes is their commitment to openness and documenting. um And and there’s a pedagogical bent to them. um that encourages interaction and play and openness. And there’s a link to get to the data set.
10:27.43
todd theriault
There’s a link to get to the published paper. There’s a link to get to the people made it if you want to contact them.
10:30.73
Jon
Yeah.
10:35.00
todd theriault
What I’m concerned about with AI is does that exist? right Can you find out where that the information is being scraped from?
10:38.90
Jon
yeah
10:42.52
todd theriault
um And I would I don’t know. I like the ones that we have. I know that I will you know improve the process and and maybe improve the quality, but I would hope that it would also retain the transparency um that’s part of this.
11:00.48
Jon
Right.
11:01.05
todd theriault
Yeah.
11:02.52
Jon
so so that So that leads to my next question, which is on where these many of these pieces were situated. So you just mentioned that you know for many of them, you can contact the author, you can download the data, there’s a GitHub site. um But many of them seem to be designed for, you know or placed in museums where people can actually physically stand there or play with them or do something with them. And people who aren’t necessarily data scientists, you know, computer scientists, um, from, from your all’s perspective, what’s the, what’s the key design insight for making those complex, these complex systems, you know, level legible, understandable to these more general audiences.
11:46.17
todd theriault
Well, first, you know, I think that it’s important to recognize that the macroscopes that are in the book come out of the 10 year long exhibit, um which procured macroscopes and had ah a call for macroscopes every year.
12:02.60
todd theriault
And they were submitted and we took them to our International Advisory Board. exhibit advisory board and we looked at them. And so there was a bent to like which ones will make sense to the most people, you know, and which ones are intuitive and and highly interactive and will matter to people and not to just to select a select few.
12:16.06
Jon
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
12:23.16
todd theriault
And so there is some selection bias to the books or the microscopes that appear in the book because they are for that for that setting, although maybe not originally designed for that. Um, but, uh, you know, I think there’s a, there’s a scene in, um, from friends. I don’t know if you, I haven’t watched it, but I know this scene, so I know it must be somewhat famous where two of the characters are in London and, uh, they want to get to Westminster Abbey and they can’t find their way. So they pull out a paper map that shows how old friends is. um and they’re like, and they look at it and they can’t get orientation. One of them says, oh, I know what I need to do. I need to get in the map, right? And so he sets it down on the ground and stands in it and sort of like you can see him sort of being a little person in this map. um
13:09.27
todd theriault
This may may not be the tightest analogy, but I do think that um this is what I look for in a macroscope. Does it allow you to get in the map? Does it allow you to…
13:18.78
Jon
e
13:20.07
todd theriault
um access the things that concern you? Does it allow you to manipulate it so that it’s useful to you? um And I think that the ones that we have in the book definitely do that and were chosen because of that. um As far as like making complex systems, I for me,
13:41.24
todd theriault
I think I have to see where I am if if the complex systems are these these big gnarly networks that have intertwining lines and connections. I want to see where they overlap me first and the people that I care about in my community. And from there, then I can extrapolate from that and and in ever ever widening circles to sort of understand. um the the big picture of it. And so the other people may have a different approach.
14:09.72
todd theriault
That seems to work for me. I don’t think I’m particularly selfish, but I think we’re all a little bit self-concerned. We want to see where we where we fit into that.
14:15.63
Jon
Mm-hmm.
14:18.17
todd theriault
So um In terms of design features, I think things that encourage exploration. So if it takes having sort of curated interactivity at the beginning sort of get you going or very extensive demo section or instructions to let you know um how to how to navigate your way through that, I think those are wonderful. um You know, things like, you know, you scroll across it and it highlights the links and and especially like something that rewards exploration and doesn’t penalize exploration.
14:54.22
todd theriault
So not all the paths you go down are going to be interesting or enlightening to you.
14:55.39
Jon
Mm-hmm.
14:59.02
todd theriault
So can you reach that dead end and be like, OK, I want to go back and get back to where you started from? Is that easy to do? And so I think all those things, to me, make for kind of a successful way to explore these very you know complex systems and sort of take bites out of them.
15:16.60
todd theriault
and And then pretty soon you start to see the interconnectedness of things building up from there.
15:22.61
Jon
Right. So now I kind of feel like the little Google orange person icon in Google Maps should just be Joey Tribbiani. And that’s what we should have had all this time, right?
15:29.74
todd theriault
That’s who it is.
15:31.61
Jon
Like just just have him run.
15:32.25
todd theriault
Yeah.
15:34.08
Jon
Yeah. um so So let me ask about this this community piece, because I think it is really important. ah Todd, you just kind of described it as making this big complex system very personal to people.
15:48.76
Jon
um And do you think that that approach generally is something that visualization developers and designers should, I don’t want to say strive for, because that’s not really the cause it’s not going to work in all cases, but you think about you know situating the user within the data, whether it’s a macroscope or or something you know maybe a little bit more contained?
16:12.50
todd theriault
Whether they do that or not, I think that’s how people will, especially if you’re not an expert in it, that’s where you’re going to start, I think. um So, yeah, I think that that’s something that that should be. There at least has to be some some connection.
16:25.02
todd theriault
um
16:25.62
Jon
Yeah.
16:26.26
todd theriault
we’re not the The nice thing about the macroscopes is there’s no one’s an expert in any of these things on this team. We have ah we have an exhibit advisory board. um But but it’s it’s great because it’s wide-ranging topics, but you need us to start somewhere. And we talked a lot about when we were writing the book about um the emotional pull, the affective nature.
16:48.60
todd theriault
And I think that kind of came out of the COVID-19 dashboards.
16:48.82
Jon
yeah
16:54.38
todd theriault
you know that That was very experiences that were… of overloaded with emotions you know and probably a lot of people’s first experiences with a macroscope you know with macroscopes and um and so we thought about how that how that matters um to to the making and the uh exhibiting of those things
17:02.14
Jon
Yeah.
17:06.57
Jon
Right.
17:16.84
Jon
Mm-hmm. so So maybe I should have started here, but let me let me pull back a second. Can one of you talk about this 10-year project and then how it, you know, you sort of win, what was the process of winnowing down to actually build? And and and I’m going to hold it up because I just feel like I have to.
17:36.76
Jon
This… um for folks who haven’t held it, it’s a very big book. It’s, this is not a seven by nine inch book. This, this is this sits on the top of the bookshelf. um But what was the, can you talk a little bit about the, this 10 year project and then how you sort of went through the three of you presumably went through and sort of a window down.
18:01.51
Lisel Record
Well, I can say that it actually started as ah as a, it’s a 20 year project, really, um really a Cotty, Cotty’s brainchild, but, um but it’s a,
18:05.30
Jon
Okay.
18:10.14
Jon
Which is weird because we’re all just like 25 years old. So it’s like, yeah, right.
18:13.27
Lisel Record
Right. We started when we were babies. and
18:15.91
Jon
Yeah. It’s really strange.
18:16.85
Lisel Record
ah
18:17.07
Jon
Yeah.
18:18.33
Lisel Record
But it does it it’s this idea of wanting to present information visualizations and to showcase best examples and techniques that that are you know innovative or useful or that are something that we might want to see happen further in information visualization. And so it started with 10 years of each year, a new iteration focused, you know, often on a different audience or a different question um and a call for submissions, much like um like a juried art exhibit.
18:52.70
Lisel Record
And then we went through pieces with um with a our advisory board who are all information visualization specialists of one.
18:52.77
Jon
Mm-hmm.
19:01.14
Lisel Record
of one stripe or another, many different kinds, and then window those down to the selections for each year. So each year there’s a new group of pieces added to the exhibit. After the first 10 years, we kind of looked at what we were doing and found that the pieces, the two-dimensional pieces we were hanging on the wall with an object label kept saying, And for the rest of the story, go online.
19:24.06
Lisel Record
And so you know, it it became clear that this was happening in it and we needed interactive visualizations to be able to showcase what was happening in the field and where it was going and what was what the new innovations looked like.
19:24.28
Jon
Yeah.
19:36.26
Lisel Record
And so so at that point, we moved to 10 years of interactive visualizations. So the pieces that you see in this book are the ones that have been selected from that 10 year span.
19:46.83
Jon
Mm.
19:47.07
Lisel Record
as, you know, kind of the best of the best. So that’s how we pulled them together.
19:50.84
Jon
it And did you all, plus the advisory board, was your when you started thinking about how do we winnow down 20 years of work, were you looking for a mix of content, a mix of modalities?
20:08.25
Jon
um Was it just like, these are the ones that we think are the best? like how how are you I mean, that’s ah that’s a big process to winnow down from a lot i mean a lot of work.
20:17.82
Lisel Record
Yeah. um we We worked with with criteria as we as we judged submissions as they came in.
20:19.55
Katy Borner
so
20:24.47
Jon
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
20:25.09
Lisel Record
Some were nominated, some were submitted by the macroscope maker teams. So we looked at, you know, how scientifically valid are they? We looked at how how applicable are they for public audiences? Like, would they translate well to this um to this mode of communication? um Let’s see. what What were other two? I’ll have to pull them up. Do you remember what our other two criteria are, Cadi and Todd?
20:50.42
Katy Borner
Yeah, it’s definitely a scientific rigor, impact and being actionable, and then also being relevant for a large audience, which not every single um map or macroscope is.
20:54.00
Jon
Mm-hmm.
21:00.59
Jon
Mm.
21:04.37
Katy Borner
And then just to answer your questions, or the initial Atlas trilogy has all 100 maps covered, which are all in the first decade of the exhibit.
21:05.05
Jon
Right.
21:15.56
Katy Borner
And then the book of macroscopes that you just held up um that has all the 40 macroscopes that came together in the second decade of the exhibit.
21:20.82
Jon
Yeah.
21:23.22
Jon
Right.
21:26.02
Katy Borner
And if you do have time, there is a third decade also in the making, so we’re happy to talk about that. But um for the macroscopes, they come in all forms and shapes and sizes, and they had to be harmonized so that they all can be explored and enjoyed on a kiosk.
21:42.82
Katy Borner
And then still, some of them are videos, some of them are scrolly stories and other side interactive data visualizations and um they are now all in a framework so that you can browse through all 40 and get sufficient information that you can have a good time with them and get actionable knowledge from them.
22:00.92
Jon
Yeah. Yeah.
22:04.11
todd theriault
Mm-hmm.
22:04.22
Jon
Now in, now I just, I just pulled out a ruler here cause I had i hadn’t done this. So the book is 11 inches by 14 inches. So it’s a, it’s a big book.
22:15.58
Jon
And I’m guessing that that was a conscious decision on your part. um Their macroscopes, which I think just the word to most people probably just evokes big and large. um were was Was that where your where your heads were at the beginning? We were like, we’re going to make this book, but it’s got to be big.
22:32.50
Jon
um Like just, it’s got to be something that has some heft to it when you hold it
22:38.86
Katy Borner
It’s just for workout, you know?
22:42.42
Katy Borner
Especially if you have now all four Atlas books, that’s a real, true workout.
22:42.72
todd theriault
Well, I think
22:46.14
Jon
Yeah, right.
22:48.12
Katy Borner
um So there are realities with MIT Press. um It’s important that they can manufacture it, that they can ship it, that they can bring it into stores, that the stores actually can hold it in their bookshelves.
22:56.39
Jon
Mm hmm.
22:59.78
Katy Borner
um So there are serious realities there.
23:00.17
Jon
Mm hmm.
23:02.50
Katy Borner
Also that the book is affordable with about $30.
23:03.22
Jon
Yeah.
23:05.78
Katy Borner
It’s a really nice Christmas present or other present. And ultimately we wanted to have these double page spreads, which just show the beauty and richness and complexity of science and other data sets.
23:13.34
Jon
Yeah.
23:17.46
Katy Borner
and and really draw people in. And for the Atlas of Macroscopes, it’s not easy to pick static screenshots, right? All of these are interactive.
23:26.99
Jon
Right. Right.
23:28.95
Katy Borner
And as we know, a picture is worth a thousand words. Now you have an interactive data visualization where you can identify what adventure you’re going to take through that visualization. So now we have to pick one of those many different adventures and make it work in a 2D environment. and Todd did an amazing job there, and we also have videos, which in many cases Todd created in close collaboration with the Microscope Makers so that we can see what they prefer as an adventurite.
24:03.18
Jon
Oh, right. Okay.
24:04.25
todd theriault
I think the size also comes in handy just because so trying to convey a sense sense of interactivity takes a lot of space. If you want to do it we worked with my wife is designed the book and these shirts, Tracy.
24:17.96
todd theriault
And um so it was i know she spent a lot of time thinking about how do you convey that through.
24:18.10
Jon
Nice.
24:24.43
todd theriault
um ah different scales of of images to sort of come out as though you were clicking on something? How do you how do you convey going into and exploring more?
24:35.33
Jon
Sure.
24:36.47
todd theriault
So do you do like a series of images of what you would see? So there are a lot of challenges. And I think the size really helps in that because you can do a lot and then you don’t sacrifice detail or legibility when you do that.
24:50.78
todd theriault
So that that did that was a plus.
24:54.39
Jon
Yeah, I mean, it’s not like you pull out the little map and stand on it, right, in London.
24:57.98
todd theriault
Right, right.
24:58.42
Jon
You need the big map to to stand on.
24:59.77
todd theriault
Exactly, exactly.
25:00.50
Jon
Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. um ah um Okay, so um so so back to the pieces. So um did you do you find that there’s ah a common mistake people make when they’re trying to build ah a macroscope, a big picture view?
25:18.65
Jon
i mean, we talked a little bit about making it personal, making it the community, making it out.
25:22.24
Katy Borner
Thank you.
25:26.07
Jon
I’ll say, I have no shame here, Todd. I’ll say making about me first before I could learn about you. um but But, you know, maybe a more positive way to think about this question is why these 40 and why not some other ones?
25:31.79
todd theriault
Yeah.
25:42.02
Jon
Like what makes these great?
25:46.55
Katy Borner
So every year there are many different macroscopes submitted to the exhibit and then the exhibit advisory board judges them based on the criteria which are on the website.
25:57.26
Katy Borner
So scientific rigor, relevance, um and also just aesthetic appeal ultimately also because oftentimes The exhibit map and macroscopes, they are displayed on museum floors and libraries, where there’s a lot of other things going on from rockets taking off or cute animals um looking at you.
26:10.81
Jon
Yeah.
26:17.75
Katy Borner
And why would you go to a data visualization instead of these two?
26:21.24
Jon
yeah
26:21.87
Katy Borner
So it’s it’s interesting how to attract and keep attention with data visualizations. But then to your question of how to ah make um people um not make mistakes when they’re trying to understand complex long-term trends and models.
26:38.01
Katy Borner
I think what you really need to keep in mind is how you get people in and then again also how to keep their attention and oftentimes it takes a bird’s eye view of just understanding the data and what is it all about then drawing them into the scrolly story or otherwise of how you take a subset of the data and you create a reference map and then you design data overlays, oftentimes many different data overlays that you can turn on and off and compare and correlate to each other. And then oftentimes you also want details on demand and you can because it’s an interactive touch panel display, so you can actually click on a data entry.
27:17.59
Katy Borner
and get more information, but you couldn’t do with the se static maps. And so it’s a deep understanding of what people really need to make better decisions in their life and also ah an understanding of what algorithms now exist and what visual metaphors exist to draw people in and keep their interest.
27:38.52
Jon
is there, or or what is the fundamental difference do you think between grabbing and keeping people’s attention in that museum space or that library space, the physical space versus online? i mean, it’s the same, i mean, we’re we’re all trying to do the same thing, right? Get attention and keep it. But but is it the fact that people are are walking rather than sitting in front of their computer? Like what is what is it that’s that that difference between the two experiences?
28:08.94
todd theriault
It was interesting. I was putting together some photos for of the first 10 years of people interacting with the science, the static science maps. And this is probably selection bias because they make good pictures.
28:20.92
todd theriault
But a lot of them was someone showing someone else a point on the science map. we Look at this detail. Sometimes they were touching it.
28:27.64
Jon
Yeah.
28:28.24
todd theriault
There was no prohibition against touching it. But I’m i’m always like hesitant to tell. I was like, look, there it is.
28:32.70
Jon
yeah
28:33.84
todd theriault
um and I don’t think we were even conscious of it, but you know, like, maybe in some sense we were, but this was a fundamental like move that people make in community in a community of learners um that translates very well to to macroscopes, interactive macroscopes. And so we had a 55 inch multi-touch screen.
28:57.86
Jon
Yeah.
28:57.99
todd theriault
of initially where people could stand around it in groups and say, well well, I want to see this. I want to see this. And if you get stuck, maybe someone else can can lead the way. And so having that aspect of it, then COVID came and no one wanted to touch the same thing or be, so there were challenges, right?
29:12.57
Jon
Yeah.
29:13.68
todd theriault
But um so I think that that understanding um the way that people interact with with each other as they interact with the works, and that’s something that we can observe by just standing by and watching how people work with these.
29:32.34
Jon
Right, right. um I mean, it’s just an interesting, i don’t know, the just the modality is just different, right? The the being able to be there, touch ah a screen. I mean, there’s here in DC, then naa NASA has this huge wall screen downtown that you can go and watch and touch. And it’s just, it is interesting for me to think about especially in this new era of AI, where I think lots of people are worried about what are computer science new graduates.
30:05.25
Jon
I’m sure you’re all, all feeling this fear from your students. um What, what are they going to be doing? um By the way, I think it’s underwater welding. I think that’s the, that’s the, the key to the future.
30:17.39
todd theriault
job of the future.
30:17.40
Jon
Yeah. um But, you know, you know is is is the more bespoke, is the more installation in a place where we’re going to see changes in information visualization? And I’ll leave, I’ll actually put that out there to you to see if you have any thoughts on on that. Or maybe generally, if you have thoughts on like what your students are seeing right now, um you know, I know that it’s ah it’s a it’s a different era suddenly.
30:47.06
Lisel Record
I do think it’s worth saying that as we have looked at visualizations over the last 10, 15 years, and one thing that we have seen is that the groups of people who are building one of these macroscopes is larger now than it was initially.
31:03.58
Jon
Well,
31:04.69
Lisel Record
So these are team effort as opposed to an individual effort.
31:07.32
Jon
yeah.
31:09.30
Lisel Record
And so I think having both the subject matter expertise of the content, I think that’s critical to understand the data and to help navigate and find those insights that are, you know, really interesting or new or whatever to help guide you through the insights is a very important aspect.
31:27.60
Lisel Record
It’s also really, it’s not by accident that many of these macroscopes are easy to understand at the top level for someone who’s a generalist. and also that they provide that depth of detail and information that holds the engagement of a specialist who’s looking for more specific information.
31:39.82
Jon
Right.
31:46.98
Lisel Record
I think that that comes about as as a result of the expertise of people like UX designers and people who really understand interaction and are experts in that.
31:59.66
Lisel Record
And so we see teams that are including both both kinds of expertise to really get to something that is engaging, that works for a broad range of levels of expertise in terms of the user and, um, and that’s engaging and that works well, it doesn’t break, you don’t get lost, um, all of those kinds of things.
32:17.67
Jon
Right. Right.
32:18.53
Lisel Record
So I think, I think acknowledging like the range of people in a team that make these macroscopes, um, really good is is still important and it’s i think that’s a that’s a pretty big team um with a lot of different types of expertise and those are all important and in building a really good macroscope
32:36.73
Jon
right and bringing their own um areas approach to these things. I mean, just thinking about publishing in different, you know, publishing in economics is very different than in computer science.
32:47.46
Lisel Record
mm-hmm
32:49.56
Jon
I mean, it’s, it’s always been extraordinary to me. And so everybody sort of brings their own professional, like, I don’t want to call it baggage because that makes it negative, but what we call package.
32:59.31
Jon
Yeah.
32:59.74
Lisel Record
But it is, it’s hard to get outside of your your jargon or your approach to a particular particular topic to imagine how someone who’s new to that topic, where might they start and how how can you help them, give them the scaffolding they need to understand your topic.
33:00.02
Jon
Yeah. to yeah
33:14.57
Lisel Record
um It’s hard to be a beginner in something that you’re deeply immersed in.
33:15.26
Jon
Yeah.
33:19.26
Jon
Right. Right. For sure. um Okay. So I don’t want to throw shade at any of the, of the 40 in the book, but I did want to ask if each of you have a favorite or maybe two ah in, in what was windowed down from 20 years of work into, into this book.
33:37.82
Jon
so I don’t know. i don’t know. Elizabeth, maybe you want to start. Did you did you have a favorite? Yeah.
33:41.56
Lisel Record
Sure. i am I will say i don’t have a favorite. I love them all.
33:45.42
Jon
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
33:47.10
Lisel Record
ah So it’s it’s difficult, but I did want to highlight um that these are also fun.
33:49.91
Jon
yeah
33:53.52
Lisel Record
And so one of one of the ones I wanted to highlight is is one called Smelly Maps, which um which provides a smellscape, if you will, or a map of what’s what different large urban cities smell like.
33:53.91
Jon
yeah
34:08.35
Lisel Record
um And one of the things that I think is really interesting about this one, besides the fact that it’s fun to look at London and you can see, oh, here’s, ah you know, what’s all this animal smell?
34:18.86
Lisel Record
What’s this about? Oh, that’s the zoo, you know, or, oh, that’s where they give carriage rides, you know, horse-drawn carriage rides.
34:20.92
Jon
ah
34:23.73
Jon
Right.
34:25.19
Lisel Record
But ah More than that, I think it’s just, it’s a creative way of thinking about how can you take an experience that’s not at its core digital, like smelling is not something that’s necessarily digital, but how can you um do that in a digital way and map it? Like how can you translate those sensory experiences into something that’s quantitative?
34:45.75
Lisel Record
I think that was an interesting approach to that.
34:45.88
Jon
Mm-hmm.
34:48.63
Jon
Yeah, I love that. Todd, do you have a favorite?
34:53.37
todd theriault
Yeah, i’ve ah I think one of the ones that I really like, especially when um if people ask, you know, do what what impact do these macroscopes have? I think this one has an ah impact, and that’s the Appalachian overdose mapping tool that came out during the the height of the opioid epidemic um and gives you a the Appalachian region and then county by county mortality rates, but then overlaid on that are demographic data, economic data, um,
35:27.77
todd theriault
employment. ah So things that, and then some things that you might not expect that give you a sense of maybe how um this, this problem, some of the, the, the not so obvious causes of it, like, you know, is there internet access um is, are there food deserts? Are there, are how are the highways, um you know, other things like that, how many people are involved in accident prone occupations.
35:55.21
todd theriault
And I, I really liked that because I think it’s, it’s got, it is what like ah Elizabeth said earlier, just something that the generalists and the specialists can both get enormous amounts from.
36:07.26
todd theriault
And I think it is something that would be invaluable for journalists seeking to, to, to write on the problem of, of, community organizers to the families at the front lines of the epidemic wanting to understand, you know, like, so I think it’s a very sobering and and it gives you just an overwhelming and an awful sense of the the scale of this of this problem.
36:30.86
todd theriault
And just the many in inter um interlacing causes for it, you know, the things that contribute to it.
36:31.38
Jon
Yeah.
36:37.37
Jon
Right.
36:38.23
todd theriault
So I really, really like that one.
36:39.01
Jon
Right.
36:40.35
todd theriault
It’s not the most fun one, but I think it’s very impactful to me.
36:42.39
Jon
Right.
36:43.35
todd theriault
Yeah.
36:44.02
Jon
Yeah. Yeah. No, it’s great. Connie.
36:46.90
Katy Borner
Yeah, I find it super that we have such a diversity among the body.
36:50.55
Jon
Yeah.
36:51.26
Katy Borner
I think you get a really good overview of what works and what doesn’t work and what you could potentially use for your own data. So we are very happy to connect um those which have data and questions to those which love to make macroscopes, the teams that are, for instance, included in the exhibit or also other teams.
37:08.20
Katy Borner
So feel free to contact us. um One map that you might like to start with or might like to explore if you’re listening in is the making sense of skills map. as So here AI is used to create a skills taxonomy and then to plot the landscape of those skills that are growing in demand or are shrinking in demand for human labor.
37:28.61
Katy Borner
because of AI, robotics, automation moving in, for instance. But then also it’s a two axis plot, right? So one is demand and the other one is salary.
37:38.80
Katy Borner
And it’s not always the case that you want the job that’s in high demand and has the highest salary. I think many of those jobs are very stressful and maybe you can’t do them for long. But there are some interesting insights from that map.
37:51.36
Katy Borner
And of course, you could animate this over time and see it trends in the jobs landscape. And as a teacher, I need to understand and that landscape because I have to um train the next generation of students in engineering, data science, computer science, information science.
37:59.75
Jon
Yeah.
38:06.83
Katy Borner
And it’s not easy to figure out what kind of forever skills I can give them and what kind of short-term skills are most useful for them to get the first job in the job market.
38:18.06
Katy Borner
And so these maps really can make a difference.
38:22.01
Jon
Yeah. Wow. Three very different ah visualizations. um Okay. So, ah so I think I have maybe, maybe three questions kind of looking forward.
38:33.08
Jon
um Is there a dataset out there that you, or maybe multiple data sets that you wish someone would pull together into a macroscope? I will go first, by the way. um I would love someone to do something on the Artemis.
38:49.27
Jon
And I know lots of people have done things, you know, showing the space flight, but but there’s more there.
38:49.73
Lisel Record
Thank you.
38:55.11
Jon
And I would love to see like a really big story on whatever it is around the Artemis, maybe how we all came together for a hot second in time. um But are there are there data sets or topics that you would love someone to, to this is this is kind of an ad for someone to like…
39:11.83
Jon
really find a good topic. But are there things that you wish people would do?
39:18.78
Katy Borner
Well, I’m very curious to map and model the human body across scales. And there are many spatial scales and many temporal scales, 10 raised power of 10 for each of those.
39:30.62
Katy Borner
And it’s super complicated to visualize this because because it’s mostly coupled feedback cycles across these different scales. And I think that’s just a super cool visualization challenge. And our team is working on it. There’s many other teams that are also working on it. And I think you will see some of this in the future.
39:49.24
Jon
OK. Elizabeth Todd, any any any data sets come to mind?
39:55.54
Lisel Record
Not so much forward-looking, but I um i am brought, it does bring to mind one macroscope that’s in it currently where someone said exactly that. They said, I’m so glad someone finally pulled these data sets together to use in this way.
40:08.41
Jon
Yeah, yeah.
40:09.87
Lisel Record
And that was the the New York City, the spatial New York City one, where New York City has a huge amount of open source data.
40:14.55
Jon
Oh, yeah.
40:19.26
Lisel Record
and someone finally pulled it together and presented it in an accessible way.
40:21.66
Jon
Yeah.
40:23.10
Lisel Record
And so I think um there is the opportunity for that in almost any topic. You know, if you if you dive into any topic deep enough, you find really interesting insights that, so I guess I would leave it wide open.
40:37.20
Lisel Record
I’m really excited to see what kinds of things come out in the next, you know, five years, 10 years, whatever. i think I think there’s no limit on what could provide interesting macroscope if someone has data.
40:47.37
Jon
Right.
40:48.41
Lisel Record
and some interesting questions for it. I think you anything could be interesting given the right focus.
40:51.52
Jon
Yeah.
40:54.67
Jon
Right. Yeah.
40:57.46
todd theriault
Yeah, I’m with a and with ah Elizabeth on this.
40:57.73
Jon
Todd, anything come to mind for you?
41:00.47
todd theriault
ah Yeah, yeah i um
41:04.20
todd theriault
i’m I’m there for it. if If someone has something, I mean, that’s been the lesson of of the macroscopes as you kind of ah became, ah you know, encountered a new topic.
41:06.87
Jon
ah
41:16.15
todd theriault
you know, every time you turned around and it it that’s that process has been great. um And so I don’t feel like there’s a particular, you know, data set that I’ve been yearning to have, but I’m i’m there and I just hope that it’s presented in a way that that people can easily make sense of it and have it matter to them. Yeah.
41:35.16
Jon
Yeah, great. um I’m gonna combine my last two questions. Kata, you mentioned earlier, we’ve got the third decade now as we enter that. um So I’ll just, I’ll plant that flag and just ask, um how can people submit or get in touch with you all or learn more if they’re like, I wanna have one of my macroscopes or one of my projects, I wanna create a project. Like what what what are the steps people need to take to sort of be involved in this next decade?
42:11.10
Jon
o I can’t hear you, Cotty.
42:15.19
Katy Borner
You go to scimaps.org, and we can maybe also feature that website link in the metadata for the video here.
42:16.25
Jon
Oh, there we
42:21.63
Katy Borner
And you get to see an exhibit menu item, and then you go to call for submissions, and that gets you more information on that third decade, which is all about visualizing intelligences.
42:33.59
Katy Borner
And so we believe we have to better understand how our microbiome interacts with our bodily cells, or how fungi and trees interact with each other and create life-sustaining function, but also, of course, how different organic intelligences interact with silicon and silicon intelligences such as large language models.
42:57.34
Jon
and
42:59.90
Katy Borner
So this next decade is really inspiring, hopefully, many to submit and work on that. and we then get the pleasure to pick the best and to ah display them in public places.
43:12.49
Katy Borner
And so we have the first iteration in hand, and that will be on display very soon. So check back on the website to see the initial visualizations of intelligences.
43:23.08
Katy Borner
But then also try to um see if your work is relevant, and please do submit.
43:29.55
Jon
Terrific. Elizabeth, Todd, Katie, thanks so much for coming on the show. it’s been great chatting with you. ah Thanks for the book. It’s got to find a good big space on my bookshelf here.
43:40.36
Jon
ah But thank you all for coming on the show.
43:41.27
todd theriault
Thank you.
43:42.76
Jon
This has been a lot of fun.
43:43.86
Lisel Record
Yeah, thank you.
43:43.90
Katy Borner
Yeah, thank you. this is good
43:45.00
todd theriault
Thanks.