I'm a "visual type". So I prefer images over text. ... But I'm not happy with word-clouds. For me, most of them, don't have a purpose, other than look good (for 15 seconds). Especially if the size of the words is manipulated by the word frequency. ... IMO it's misleading.
For me "data visualisation" should try to show something new. To give insight into something "unexpected".
An example of my thoughts:
If I look at a TW, that mainly stores content about cats, it's expected that, that tag will be big. ... But for me as a visitor of the site, that isn't new information, because I probably did find the site with a google search about "cat" TWs. ....
So for me it would make sense, that there is an eye-catcher that points me to the tag:
dog, instead of cat, cat and more cats.
So for my thoughts above the "cat" will clearly win by frequency. ... but it's the dog, that makes the difference :)
Just two links, that I find interesting:
An blog post with a provoking title can be found here: "
Word clouds considered harmful"
And a
visually impressive TED talk about "religions and babies" can be seen here. I highly recommend to view it till the end and you'll be taken by surprise!
just some thoughts.
have fun!
-mario