ONS Digital

The ONS Digital Content team is looking forward to hosting this year’s edition of The Graphical Web at the University of Winchester between August 27^th and 30^th. We have a really great lineup of keynote speakers, talks, panel sessions and training workshops meaning that, if you are in any way interested in the visual presentation of content on the web, there should be something for you on the program.

This year’s conference theme ‘Visual Storytelling’ was a deliberate attempt on my part to bring experts from far and wide to an immersive event on our own doorstep: A triple whammy of horizon-scanning, skills-building and quality networking time, along with a ‘dataviz’ dinner on a Victorian warship – not even Florence Nightingale got to do that. I am aware that a lot of conferences have tackled similar themes recently – no surprise, given the move of web content towards the visual/personal/social continuum. So what makes The Graphical Web different?

One of my colleagues on the organising committee, Dr. David Dailey, has come up with an alternative strapline for the conference: “Where standards meet practice“. I like this a lot, because it sums up very neatly a conference where you can be sat inbetween a data journalist and someone responsible for developing the graphics rendering capabilities of Chrome or Firefox, or even sketching out the future of new graphics formats. As a W3C-supported conference, The Graphical Web really is a unique opportunity to meet with the people defining the future of the Web and those people ready to exploit it.

So what are some of this year’s highlights? For a start, some amazing keynote speakers:

• Jason Davies co-author of the d3 visualisation library
• Cameron Beccario of live wind map fame
• Scott Murray from the University of San Francisco, who will also be running a couple of his famous workshops on d3
• Ed Parsons, Google’s Geospatial Technologist
• Amanda Farnsworth, Editor, Visual Journalism at the BBC

We also have some great panel sessions and training workshops involving the likes of Robert Kosara, Lynn Cherny, Nicolas Belmonte and, a personal favourite, Jaume Sanchez Elias – have you seen the online trailer for the Oscar-winning movie ‘Gravity‘ (below) ?

Ticket sales for The Graphical Web are still open, but you have to book quickly if you want to join us for the social event on HMS Warrior, as we need to provide an advance list well in advance to meet security requirements inside Portsmouth dockyard.