Visualizing Numbers

I often use metrics in security, and I am always trying to find ways to represent the numbers in a compelling/meaningful style.

Chris Jordan has taken this challenge to heart and created a stunning, if only a bit cheesy, online exhibit called “Running the Numbers: An American Self-Porait“:

This new series looks at contemporary American culture through the austere lens of statistics. Each image portrays a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (thirty seconds of can consumption) and so on. My hope is that images representing these quantities might have a different effect than the raw numbers alone, such as we find daily in articles and books. Statistics can feel abstract and anesthetizing, making it difficult to connect with and make meaning of 3.6 million SUV sales in one year, for example, or 2.3 million Americans in prison, or 426,000 cell phones retired every day. This project visually examines these vast and bizarre measures of our society, in large intricately detailed prints assembled from thousands of smaller photographs.

Have to think about how to incorporate these ideas of visual representation into security awareness such as slogans and posters. How would you depict the number of blocked connections, or brute-force attempts, on your systems?

Incidentally, this project reminds me that people rarely notice large amounts of similar/smaller sets of data, but magnitude relative to themselves has an impact. I expect someone to say they are impressed when standing at the base of Everest because of the overall size of the mountain compared to their own height/mass and not because of numbers of accumulated snowflakes, dirt, etc.. So Jordan’s exhibit should do well if he uses a really, really, really large format to convey the message.

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