Being able to visualize data is an easy way to tell a story or explain test results in an interesting way. Everyone absorbs data differently, after all. However, it is not as easy to implement. The intended audience was for Star Wars fans old and new. I wanted them to be able to explore the Star Wars universe from a historical perspective to better understand the power of the force through the Star Wars movie saga. 

The visualization was inspired by Minard’s graphic of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia. Those familiar with the canon can dig deeper in the historical context with the geospatial relationships while newer fans can at least understand the data in reference to each movie.

Version 1

The visualization focuses on the military power of the Galactic Empire as documented by "Rogue One", "Star Wars: A New Hope," "The Empire Strike Back", "The Return of the Jedi", and "Force Awakens."

As you can see in the graph, The Empire had some ill-conceived strategies with fatal outcomes at the Battle of Yavin and Endor with losses in the millions. For all the new fans I included several annotations and extra bits of information that were relevant to the experience. Both these battles ended with exploding Death Stars. The power of the force was also taken into account, highlighting the resurgence of the Jedi during the Battle of Endor as well.

Using R Studio to create the statistical graphs allowed me to integrate the data I pulled from Wookieepedia, Lucasfilm, and
Disney. The datasets used were created manually. Once the graphs were generated, I brought them into Adobe Illustrator to refine with a clean visual design which highlighted the data in a smart blend of typography and Gestalt principles. 

Version 2

Trying to visualize outer space in 2D was a big challenge. Annotating events was difficult in a static illustration with dense overlap of type and color too much for the user to understand. Encoding the movie timeline conflicted with the geospatial data of the battles as well. The interactive version I created on Tableau Public made the information easier to digest as well as more enticing to explore, integrating the movie timeline along with interactive legends.

Key Takeaways

Useful infovisuals and graphics are important for designers to be able to tell clear and concise stories to clients and stakeholders, but casual infoviz is maybe just as important. Casual infoviz helps depict personally meaningful information in visual ways that support everyday users in both everyday work and non-work situations according to Pousman and Stasko. 

However, maybe a more precise term to use for creating awareness and catalyzing social interactions among users can be what Alison Lee refers to as Social Visualization. My goal all along was to start a conversation with my audience and maybe even to reach out to a more diverse demographic to spark more inspiration... in a galaxy far, far away...