Kaarin Hoff and Daniel O'Neil keynote from A2 Data Dive : Conversation based, data driven strategy for better visualizations. Discussion of what makes visualizations great. Definition of core principles: clear, useful, ethical, credible.
1 of 40
More Related Content
Listening to Data
1. Listening to Data
Conversation based, Data driven strategy
for better visualizations
Daniel ONeil, Business Analyst
Kaarin Hoff, Information Architect
The Understanding Group (TUG)
@phoenix1189
@kaarinh
@undrstndng
@undrstndng
2. The Understanding Group
is an Information Architecture practice
dedicated to making things be good.
We work to Understand the goals of your Business and Users,
then we architect your information to achieve those goals.
@undrstndng
3. Kaarin Hoff
Information Architect, TUG
ter
Chap
Source: http://www.artble.com/artists/johannes_vermeer, http://ffffound.com/home/vvva/found/
ter 1
Chap
2
EdR
Log
o
8
H om
1
r
le
d
xamp icing elit, sena
is
ag
ne y E
ip
m
ou
tur ad dolore tation
mer J amet, consectebore et rud exercit. Duis
ut la
t
nost nsequa
lor si cididunt
quis
llum
o co
m do
am,
se ci
r in
m ipsu tempo inim veni ea commod e velit es caecat
Lore
ad m
lit
nt oc
luptat
usmod
p ex
do ei Ut enim si ut aliqui derit in vo epteur si serunt mol
.
xc
ni
E
ia de
ehen
aliqua laboris
riatur. a qui of鍖c
in repr
co
lp
lla pa
ullam re dolor
iru
at nu , sunt in cu
gi
ex ea
aute
eu fu oident
iquip
in
ut al
derit
dolore tat non pr m.
nisi
ehen
r.
ru
boris
in repr lla pariatu a
cupida est labo
co la re dolor
id
lp
nu
ullam
iru
anim
in cu
giat
tation Duis aute re eu fu dent, sunt
erci
ud ex nsequat. llum dolo t non proi .
ci
Nostr odo co
m
ta
esse at cupida est laboru
comm e velit
caec
im id
at
volupt teur sint ocnt mollit an
Excep ia deseru
ex ea
鍖c
si
iquip
qui of
ut al laboris ni
pens ris nisi
lamco
bo
g hap
ethin lamco la citation ul
Som
er
ul
ud ex
ter 1: citation
er
Nostr nsequat.
Chap
ea
uat.
ud ex
p ex in
Nostr odo conseq mmodo co
aliqui
rit
co
ens
comm p ex ea
happ ris nisi ut reprehende tur.
ui
else
ria
ut aliq
hing mco labo dolor in nulla pa lpa
re
cu
omet
la
r 2: S citation ul s aute iru eu fugiat , sunt in
te
nt
ui
er
Chap
dolore n proide
uat. D
ud ex
Nostr odo conseq se cillum datat no borum.
es
cupi
est la
comm e velit
caecat
im id
at
volupt teur sint ocnt mollit an
Excep ia deseru
鍖c
qui of
Ser
v
10
al
Extern
tX
Clien
3
9
Custo
e
Prop
rty #3
2
5
3
6
5
7
e
Prop
rty #2
4
2
4
erty
Prop
#1
1
e>
ice
Ser
vic e
ice s
s
Em
plo
yme
s
Intr
nt |
odu
New
cto
ava
ry c
s|C
ilab
onte
onta
le,
elit.
nt a
ct U
Duis exclus
bou
s | In
ively
t th
laore
e va
ves
S
thro
et e
riety
ed
tor
ugh
gest
non
Rela
of s
as n
EdR
P
just
NYS
erv
hase
tion
equ
o od
Tru
ices
E-E
e, q
llus
st.
io.
In
DR
uis
ava
Lore
eleife
teg
:
vive
ilab
m ip
er b
nd vu
rra
le a
Sed
1.03
land
sum
ipsu
nd
lputa
adip
it te
%
dolo
the
m ve
Abo
te te
isci
mpu
mag
r sit
cus
hicu
ng co
llus
s vo
ut E
na,
ame
tom
la a
sed
nse
lutp
vel
izati
t, co
pulv
c.
dR
qua
ven
at.
vari
on
nse
inar
ena
t lob
us.
tha
ctetu
nec,
tis n
ortis
t is
r ad
equ
gra
. Do
ipis
vida
e le
nec
Fin
cing
ctus
id n
a nc
ultric
unc.
in e
ing
es,
ros.
era
Nam
t vita
Dev
e po
vita
e ph
elop
sue
are
re p
me
tra
Fin
orttit
nt
dui.
a nc
or, fe
Acq
Etia
ing
lis ve
m te
uisit
lit te
llus
ions
mpu
velit
s
, ma
Pro
ttis
pert
a
D
Pro
11
eve
per
ties
yM
lo
Abb
pm
revi
en t
Cas
ated
each
eS
con
tud
serv
ten 12
ies
ipsu
ice
t sp
offer
m do
eci鍖
ing
Acq
lor
c to
adip
sit am
. Lo
uisit
isci
rem
Abb
ng
et,
ions
eges
elit.
revi
cons
Dui
tas
ated
ecte
each
s la
nequ
vehi
tur
con
oree
serv
e, qu
cula
ten
t
ipsu
ice
t sp
is vi
ac.
offer
m do
eci鍖
verr
ing
lor
a ip
Pro
c to
Lear
adip
sit am
. Lo
sum
pert
nm
isci
rem
Abb
ng
ore
et,
yM
eges
elit.
cons
revi
abou
an a
Dui
tas
ated
ecte
t Fin
each
gem
s la
nequ
vehi
tur
con
anci
oree
serv
ent
e, qu
cula
ten
ng
t
ipsu
ice
t sp
is vi
ac.
offer
m do
eci鍖
verr
Lear
ing
lor
a ip
c to
adip
nm
sit am
. Lo
sum
isci
ore
rem
Abb
ng
et,
abou
eges
elit.
revi
cons
t Dev
Dui
tas
ated
ecte
each
s la
elop
nequ
vehi
tur
con
oree
serv
men
e, qu
cula
ten
t
ipsu
t
ice
t sp
is vi
ac.
offer
m do
eci鍖
verr
Lear
ing
lor
a ip
c to
adip
nm
sit am
. Lo
sum
isci
ore
rem
ng
et,
abou
eges
elit.
cons
t Acq
Dui
tas
ecte
s la
nequ
uisi
vehi
tur
oree
tion
e,
cu
@undrstndng
ana
ge m
en t
4. Daniel ONeil
Business Analyst, TUG
Source: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~phyl/baboon.html
@undrstndng
Source: http://scan.oxfordjournals.org/content/2/4/323/F2.expansion
15. Uhh, were not here to talk
about military history.
True: but the lessons of this visualization persist
@undrstndng
16. The Common DNA of Visualizations
All visualizations:
Are rhetorical acts
Ask deep value questions what matters? What do we really
care about? How are we going to describe our world?
Are abstractions
e.g. Histogram buckets
Work on multiple dimensions
Visual, cognitive, emotional, analytical
@undrstndng
23. Core Principle of Presenting Data
Conversation Based
Your data has a point of
view, and wishes to start a
conversation
Source: https://www.earlymoments.com/dr-seuss/How-to-Use-DrSeuss-Book-Clubs/Advanced-Reader-Books/
@undrstndng
24. Realizing the Conversation Principle
Visualizations should be:
Clear
Useful
Ethical
Credible
@undrstndng
25. Clear
Can someone describe what your chart is trying to do in 2
sentences using simple words?
Better yet, can two people look at the chart and give the
same basic explanation?
Pick a model based on your information, not vice-versa.
@undrstndng
26. Lets look at some examples:
Worldwide Nuclear Weapon Detonations
A Real-Time Map of Births and Deaths
@undrstndng
27. Useful
Key data points are visible without relying on interaction
Data is downloadable as a table (assuming interactive
data)
Is applicable/appropriate to your audience and your goals
@undrstndng
28. Lets look at those examples again:
Worldwide Nuclear Weapons Detonations
A Real-Time Map of Births and Deaths
@undrstndng
29. Ethical
While designing the chart, write down what you are leaving
out and review it.
Identify what narrative you are trying to tell and determine if
what you are leaving out undermines that narrative.
If a story is too complex to tell in a chart, it may not be true.
Change scale, proportions, etc on the chart to identify
possible distortions of the visual data.
@undrstndng
31. Credible
A lot of this is an outcome of doing other things right, but
there are some things you can do make sure you dont lose
credibility:
Aesthetic decisions
Citations
Proper professional and cultural vernacular for audience
(e.g. physicists vs. engineers, dollar vs. euro, children
vs. adults)
@undrstndng
32. U.S. Crime Rate Trends
Finding: Between 1990 and 2008 there was a forty-five
percent decline in violent crime
Many theories about this:
Community policing
Improved economic situation
Tough on Crime and prisons
@undrstndng
33. Credibility problems
Community policing happened after initial decline
Crime continued to drop even in a bad economy
Prison population growth largely made up of nonviolent
offenders
@undrstndng
39. Resources
Data Visualization Best Practices by Jen Underwood
http://www.slideshare.net/idigdata/data-visualization-bestpractices-2013
More on Abstraction by Kaarin
20 minute version from IA Summit:
http://understandinggroup.com/2013/04/abstraction-forclarity/
5 minute version from A2 Ignite UX:
http://understandinggroup.com/2013/10/ignite-ux-annarbor-abstraction-talk/
@undrstndng
40. Comments? Thoughts?
Wed love to hear from you
Daniel ONeil, @phoenix1189
Kaarin Hoff, @kaarinh
www. understandinggroup.com
@undrstndng
Editor's Notes
Welcome to our talk, Listening to Data. Were very happy to be part of an event like A2 Data Drive and talking about such a great topic. Today we will be discussing how to make better visualizations by focusing on being conversation based and data driven.
Hello, my name is Kaarin Hoff Im an information architect, or IA for short, at TUG. My background is also quite varied but visualizations and UM have remained consistent. In undergrad I studied History and Art History, spending a lot of time in archives piecing together information from images and text to get as clear a story as possible. After that, I worked at UM planning orientations from end-to-end -> promotion, registration, ect. That is when I really began to understand the how crucial visualizations are to our everyday life. So many of my meets were disasters getting so far off track bc a columns sum wasnt correct or a websites purpose wasnt agreed on because the whole meeting was spent discussing how an image wasnt aligned correctly. One day someone told me the IA of the site I managed was bad. So I Google IA and shortly there after I applied to grad school bc it sounded so cool thats what I wanted to do all the time! So I when to SI where I met Dan Klyn by taking his IA course and now I work at his company making useful things out of information and loving it.
B.A., Cognitive ScienceM.S., Evolutionary PsychologyBusiness analyst, online marketing and IA
Everyone here has a different story of how they came to be in this room with their current data need but the great news is weve ALL been working with visualizations our whole lives. Who here has made a bar chart? Knows that a pie chart has nothing to do with Pillsbury dough? Exactly. So whether you know 2 charts or 50 charts, the principles were talking about here today applyBecause we live in a world full of data questions. We have all this information and now we need to figure out what to do with it. Visualizations are a tool for putting that data to work for you in convincing your stakeholders, in explaining the problem, even in suggesting solutions.
The purpose of todays talk is to provide a core set of principles that transcends best practices. There are no shortage of examples of good and bad visualizations. The trick is choosing the BEST way to visualize your data so lets discuss that principles that will allow you to get there.Before we dive in lets look at some visualizations to think about what they have in common and what they can accomplish
This visualization was made by Minard in 1869. It is the aspirational, unachievable, Mona Lisa of visualizations. Analyzing the best of the best, something that is still regarded as the best 130+ years later can show us some of the core principles of visualizations. Tufte analyzed this visualization in his book, Beautiful Evidence. Documented
Tufte analyzed this visualization in his book, Beautiful Evidence.
Answer the question: Compared to what?Thats 1 out of 42 survival rate
Show explanationWarmest day was 32 degreesMinard doesnt say the cold killed them but the evidence being presented together like this declares the relation. We humans make associations when things are placed next to each other like this. Minard used this wisely, since he had many legitimate first- hand accounts of soldiers freezing to death.
6 variables here : size of army, geographical location, direction of movement (invading & retreating), temperature, timeIf you evidence is numerical and geographical, thats ok. Combine them to tell the story. Dont be feel limited to a certain type of visualization, like a line chart, and miss out on telling your whole story. Be true to your data
Visual can be deep to add evidence text, images Make your main point right away, but you can give you audience more to digest in they lingerLike a painting
Minards visualization has stood the test of time and is so revered because of the rigorous documentation attached to it. Everything is proved that he represents here. So no you dont need to go to the library archives, but do include or refer to where your data is from. Do include a ledged if necessary.
Minard was a soldier telling soldier stories, exposing the cost of war. Tufte said it best so Ill read this That the word Napoleon does not appear on the map of Napoleons march indicates here at least full attention is to be given to memorializing the dead soldiers rather than celebrating the surviving celebrity.
subway - Rhetoric - Sequence trumps location Abstraction - location eliminated Multi-D punch - yin/yang, the power of a loop or line
What the system would look like with geography
Army - Rhetoric - War is suffering? dont invade Russia? Abstraction - Described in the narrative Multi-D punch - Temperature, location, time, death
Bell curve - Rhetoric - THIS IS HOW THE WORLD WORKS Abstraction - sample size, histogram bucket size, p<.05 Multi-D punch - pattern matching, storytelling, profiling----- Meeting Notes (11/8/13 14:00) -----Don't mention histogram
----- Meeting Notes (11/8/13 14:00) -----We've looked at some reasons that visualiztions work and we've described the common DNA of visualizations.
Visualizations as conversation centerpiece - sometimes with people in the room, sometimes with people you will never see - must consider your data, your goal, your audience to pick the right visualizationClearUsefulEthicalCredible
Pick a model based on your information, not viceversaCan someone describe what your chart is trying to do in about two sentences using simple words.Better yet, can two people look at the chart and give the same basic explanation.
US Population simulatorhttps://googledrive.com/host/0B2GQktu-wcTiZlAyTTFEaFVuOUk/Too granularAnnoying popup elementsHard to really get sense of time and space because of way data is displayed (scroll on left doesnt really match scroll on the right)History of Nuclear bomb explosions, by nationhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9lquok4Pdkright level of granularitydoesnt overwhelm the viewer with the passage of timeUse of sound, color, and space
A lot of this is an outcome of doing other things right, but there are some things you can do make sure you dont lose credibility:aesthetic decisionscitationsproper professional and cultural vernacular for audience (ex, physicists vs. engineers, dollar vs. euro, children vs. adults)aggregate of other good best practices abovehttp://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline
A lot of this is an outcome of doing other things right, but there are some things you can do make sure you dont lose credibility:aesthetic decisionscitationsproper professional and cultural vernacular for audience (ex, physicists vs. engineers, dollar vs. euro, children vs. adults)aggregate of other good best practices abovehttp://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline
A lot of this is an outcome of doing other things right, but there are some things you can do make sure you dont lose credibility:aesthetic decisionscitationsproper professional and cultural vernacular for audience (ex, physicists vs. engineers, dollar vs. euro, children vs. adults)aggregate of other good best practices abovehttp://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline
Four charts:drop in crime and leaddrop in pregnancies and leadcompared to whatShow explanationshow information in layersCredibleDetails matterhttp://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline
Four charts:drop in crime and leaddrop in pregnancies and leadcompared to whatShow explanationshow information in layersCredibleDetails matterhttp://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline
Four charts:drop in crime and leaddrop in pregnancies and leadcompared to whatShow explanationshow information in layersCredibleDetails matterhttp://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline
Four charts:drop in crime and leaddrop in pregnancies and leadcompared to whatShow explanationshow information in layersCredibleDetails matterhttp://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline