Data Visualization
Alice McGrath | 16 June 2023
Overview
- Principles and approaches to data
- What makes a good data visualization?
- The process of visualization
- Activity: RawGraphs.io
- Activity: Draw your data
- Examine power
- Challenge power
- Elevate emotion & embodiment
- Rethink binaries and hierarchies
- Embrace pluralism
- Consider context
- Make labor visible
Data Feminism, D’Ignazio, C., & Klein, L. (MIT UP:
2020). Read for free
online.
What makes a good data viz?
- What’s the message of the visualization?
- What questions does it raise?
- What makes it effective?
Ed Hawkins,
University of Reading, 2018
How do you make a data viz?
Get data
- Collect it
- Find a dataset
- Clean and organize it
- Get to know the context and effects of the data collection
process
- Basic info: try using wtf csv
Analyze data
What types of data do you have? Numeric, categoric, geographic,
temporal, relationships
How many variables do you have? How do your variables relate to
each other? quantities/distribution, correlation, part of a whole,
change over time, relationships
What questions can your dataset answer? What stories can it
tell?
Design visualizations
What will you show?
- All variables? Relationships between variables?
- Summaries? Every data point?
What graph types would
be most effective?
- Useful resource: From Data to
Viz
- Use your imagination! Draw your visualization on paper.
- For inspiration: Dear
Data project, Georgia Lupi & Stefanie Posavec; See also the
winners of the [Information is Beautiful Awards]
- What methods can you use to highlight your variables?
- How can you make the results visually compelling and
communicative?
- How can you make them more accessible?
Storytelling
- What should viewers take away from your visualization?
- What kind of contextual information is needed for them to understand
it?
Activity
Creating a data visualization using RawGraphs.io
- Choose one of the data samples and select a recommended
visualization
- Assign categories and data columns to features
- Select colors and labels to customize your data viz
- Export it as an .svg file
Next steps
- Open the .svg in Illustrator for additional customization
- Find your own dataset to visualize in rawgraphs
- Embed your visualization in your log
Activity: collecting and
drawing data
Collecting
- How many countries and US states have you lived in? For how
long?
- List all the locations, with the approximate number of years you
have lived there
- Add your name, each location, and the number of years to this
excel sheet
Drawing
- In groups of 2: draw visual representations of this dataset
- Design it however you like
- Aim to create two different versions