On Goals and Expectations
Data visualizations and information graphics have always fascinated me. I can spend hours looking at them; comparing data points, reading stories and sometimes just enjoying their visual profundity. With the advent of big data some years ago the amount of data visualizations began to explode. Suddenly everyone was making them, be it with data from their own personal digestion cycle or from the US national defense budget. I watched with interest, but not uncritically. I began to look beyond the beauty of visualizations and ask myself what kind of story was being told by whom and why they were telling it in this way. In my bachelor project I tried to document and measure an experience and make the viewer looking at the project re-experience it in an interactive, visual way. This turned out to be quite a challenge. Anyhow, it lead me to believe that new possibilities to collect and save large amounts of data call for new ways of experiencing this data. This is where, for me, the work of Interactive Things enters the scene.
After finishing my Bachelor in Visual Communication I applied for an internship at Interactive Things, as I felt that this could be an interesting next step that would complement my knowledge of print design and would deepen my knowledge of interactive design. Months later, I am finally here and trying to pack elusive expectations into a few tangible goals. Here they are:
The Skills I have always been fascinated by code and have started to look into it myself in the past few months. During my internship at Interactive Things I would like to further explore Javascript and get to know cutting edge front-end visualization tools. Besides that, I would like to learn new programs such as Sketch, Tableau and Invision. On the less technical side, I want to explore new ways of presenting data and telling stories. Last but not least, I see the blog as a good opportunity to practice my writing skills and would like to write posts on a regular basis.
The Processes I am very interested in learning about how a creative process that includes people with a more technical background and people with a more visual background looks like and to see how Interactive Things works with clients. I am also looking forward to learning about the creative, technical and administrative process that takes place when a data set is made into an interactive visualization.
In general, I would like to find out if Interaction Design is a field I would like to discover more about and even work in in the future. Besides all these maybe more personal goals, I hope that I can become a valuable team member, supporting the Interactive Things team in various ways during my internship.
