Photo by PlanetEye
A recent article in the New York Times by Alice Rawsthorn highlights the role of visualizing community information for the benefit of sociological research. However the article was not looking at a contemporary example, instead it featured an example from 1886. Charles Booth of London created a series of maps from 1886 to 1903 that featured a color coding system to visualize the different socioeconomic situations of residents in the city. The article points out that these maps helped to draw attention to the growing problem of poverty in London.
The article celebrates Booth’s work as an example of effective information design where large amounts of information where placed into a structure that made it easy for the user to navigate and process.
