Communications of the ACM
Website Seeks to Make Government Data Easier to Sift Through
Data USA, a project by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab, seeks to better organize and visualize government data.
Credit: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab on April 4 announced Data USA, a project designed to make it easier for people to sift through vast troves of government information.
The freely accessible website is described as "the most comprehensive visualization of U.S. public data," and it uses open source software code so developers can build custom applications by adding other data.
Data USA project director and Media Lab professor Cesar A. Hidalgo says the site aims to "transform data into stories" typically rendered as graphics, charts, and written summaries.
In one example, the action of typing "New York" into the search box summons a drop-down menu of choices such as the city, the metropolitan area, and the state. When a user selects an option, the page displays related images and basic statistics, while on a lower level are six icons for related subject categories. The icons link to data stories enhanced with graphics.
Deloitte contributed funding and expertise to the project, and Deloitte's Patricia Buckley says the purpose of Data USA is to "organize and visualize data in a way that a lot of people think about it."
Northwestern University professor Kris Hammond predicts the type of data analysis Data USA uses, in which the site makes assumptions about users and codes those assumptions within its software, will become more commonplace.
From The New York Times
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