Data Therapy 1 - July 2011

Welcome

Need Therapy?

Goal

• data overload
• no money for consultants
• we want to use our data
• what tools exist?
• how do we share our data well?

Learn a process for picking techniques to tell a story with your data

Techniques

xkcd.com

Data

Therapy

Agenda

Community

personalize it

with stories

make a

creative chart

make an

interactive game

• welcome
• a process
• evaluation criteria
• break
• techniques
• group therapy

map it

make a

traditional chart

"physicalize" it

Tip

this workship

how to present your data

part 1

cartography

visualization

statistics

graphic design

data mining

presentation skills

data analysis

color theory

Personalize Your Data with Stories:

Photos from a Local Assessment

Map Your Data:

Community Health Network Area 20

"Physicalize" Your Data:

Sugar in a Soft Drink

Your

Turn!

Personalize Your Data with Stories:

Photos from a Local Assessment

Map Your Data:

Community Health Assessment

The Data

• photograph that tells a story about how environmental influences can impact chronic diseases

The Goals

• increase awareness and change policies to help make the healthy choices easier

The Audience

• planning committee and policy makers

The Technique

• show a compelling photo and share a story

The Data

• populations of towns

The Goals

• help get a sense of the populations served

The Audience

• members of the Community Health Network Area

The Technique

• import population data into ManyEyes, export map image and then import that into a Prezi presentation

"Physicalize" Your Data:

Sugar in a Soda Bottle

The Data

• the amount of sugar in a soft  drink

The Goals

• inform people about the amount of sugar they consume when drinking a bottle of soda (and possibly change their behavior)

The Audience

• general public

The Technique

• fill a soft drink bottle with the amount of sugar in that drink

Chart Your Data Traditionally:

Hockey and Bathroom Breaks in Canada

Chart Your Data Creatively:

Health Expenditures and Outcomes

A Process

Chart Your Data Traditionally:

Hockey and Bathroom Breaks in Canada

The Data

• water consumption before and during the hockey final

The Goals

• amuse people by show the relationship between water consumption and timing of events in the hockey game

The Audience

• general public

The Technique

• show multiple data on same chart (before-game use, during-game use, and game events)

Chart Your Data Creatively:

Health Expenditures and Outcomes

The Data

• health care spending, doctor visits, and life expectancy

The Goals

• show the disparity in US outcomes/expenditure

The Audience

• general (educated) public

The Technique

• use a non-common chart-style

include multiple layers of understanding (high-level and detailed)

• show multiple set of data in the same space

Make Your Data Interactive

SCAP YRBS Data Game

What percent of Somerville middle school students did NOT drink alcohol during the past 30 days?

a) 46%

b) 61%

c) 79%

d) 91%

*Data from the 2009 YRBS survey administered to Somerville middle school students.

Make Your Data Interactive

SCAP YRBS Data Game

The Data

• Youth Risk Behavior Survey data from Somerville middle schools

The Goals

•  change social norms about substance use and increase community involvement in prevention

The Audience

• Somerville community members (including youth and adults)

The Technique

• Ask audience to 'guess' how many  people are engaging in a behavior by holding up colored-coded signs
• Reveal the real data and ask people to talk about it

Your Thoughts

find & characterize

your data

chronological

sequential

interview

data is everywhere

qualitative

or

quantitative

focus group

geolocated

survey

tabular

narrative

repeating

diverging

photo

identify your

goals & audience

Goals?

Audiences?

make a

visualization

raise awareness

inspire activism

get funding

reflection

change policy

Bias

volunteers

grow membership

funders

general public

behaviour change

internal

donors

change social norms

policy makers

• confirmation bias
• disconfirmation bias
• ease into it

... part 2

pick a

technique

History

Now

applied statistics?

data science?

Florence Nightingale

Leonardo Da Vinci

Galileo Galilei

Matthew Hurst

Ben Fry

Aaron Koblin

Jose Duarte

text and image work together to tell a story

USA Today

Tips & Tricks

www.treas.gov

Brendan Nyham

whoissick.org

Limited Special Effects

Color Has Meaning

• avoid "chart junk" (Edward Tufte)
• focus on readability of the content

Literacy

diverging

• image readability
• audience pre-disposition and familiarity

sequential

qualitative

Mike Alexander / IDMG

colorbrewer2.org

Scott McCloud

Matthew Hurst

Start Simple

Causality

Give Evidence

• always cite your sources
• if possible and appropriate, give links back to source data

blog.okcupid.com

xkcd

Small Multiples

Edward Tufte

• our brains are built for pattern identification
• helps answer "compared to what"?