Data Stories

Hey folks, we are back! Before delving into this episode’s content, we have a special announcement: we started a crowdfunding campaign to turn Data Stories into a show that is fully-funded by our listeners! You can support us by visiting our Patreon page, and all the details of the initiative can be found here. For our first episode of 2017 we had a very delightful chat with Brendan Dawes. Brendan is an artist and designer who works with interactive installations, data visualizations, and all things across the digital and physical sphere. He has a lot of super fascinating projects, including the famous Cinema Redux, an art piece that visualizes entire movies as a collection of snapshots. On the show we talk about his projects, his design process and philosophy, his relationship with the data visualization world, how he generates ideas, and his upcoming projects. We hope you enjoy this great conversation at the intersection of data, art, design, interaction and visualization! Data Stories is brought to you by Qlik. Are you missing out on meaningful relationships hidden in your data? Unlock the whole story with Qlik Sense through personalized visualizations and dynamic dashboards which you can download for free at qlik.de/datastories. Links Our Patreon crowdfunding campaign: https://www.patreon.com/datastories Brendan Dawes: http://www.brendandawes.com/ Brendan’s Cinema Redux project: http://www.brendandawes.com/projects/cinemaredux Our episode on Indexical Visualization: http://datastori.es/80-indexical-visualization-with-dietmar-offenhuber/ Brendan’s Doris Le Bot project: http://www.brendandawes.com/projects/dorislebot Brendan’s James Bond Kills project: http://www.brendandawes.com/projects/jamesbondkills Brendan’s Plastic Player project: http://www.brendandawes.com/projects/plasticplayer Brendan’s Six Monkeys project for email interaction: http://www.brendandawes.com/projects/sixmonkeys Processing software: https://processing.org/ openFrameworks: http://openframeworks.cc/ http://datastori.es/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Brendan-Dawes-promo.m4v Help Data Stories get crowdfunded! You can find the details at our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/datastories.

Hey everyone! For the end of the year we decided to experiment with a new, very special kind of episode. We asked 6 different visualization experts from 6 different countries (and 5 different continents!) to tell us what happened this year in the data visualization space on their side of the world. We virtually traveled very far! On the podcast, we have Krisztina Szűcs from Hungary, Blaise Aboh from Nigeria, Simon Ducroquet from Brazil, Nikita Rokotyan from Western Siberia, Simon Elvery from Australia, and Jane Pong from Hong Kong. To each, we asked four simple questions: Who are you and where are you located? How is the data visualization scene where you are? What were the major developments or projects this year? What do you hope for next year? As you will discover by listening to this episode, a lot is going on in these countries. It’s fascinating to learn about it, and we really hope you’ll enjoy our new experiment. Let us know what you think! …And with this, we wish you Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year! It’s been great serving all of you through our show, including a total of 24 episodes this year! Take care. This episode of Data Stories is sponsored by Qlik, which allows you to explore the hidden relationships within your data that lead to meaningful insights. Don’t miss their webinar on business intelligence trends 2017 on January 11, 2017! Links Krisztina Szűcs in Hungary Krisztina:  http://krisztinaszucs.com/ Krisztina’s Little Red Riding Hood Data Viz Dear Data: http://www.dear-data.com/ Blaise Aboh in Nigeria Company: Orodata Science Blaise on Medium:  https://medium.com/@AimLEGEND_ Simon Ducroquet in Brazil Simon Ducroquet: cargocollective.com/ducroquet Simon Ducroquet’s Nexo: https://www.nexojornal.com.br/ Nikita Rokotyan in Western Siberia Nikita Rokotyan: http://rokotyan.com/ 63 Years of Nobel Prize Visualizations Moscow Marathon Visualization Tinker with a neural network:  http://playground.tensorflow.org/ The Rhythm of Food Data Visualization Russia Slack Channel: https://datavisrus.typeform.com/to/KI90wt Simon Elvery in Australia Simon Elvery: https://elvery.net/drzax/ Hacks Hackers Brisbane Stories with Data Slack Channel: http://storieswithdata.community/ The Guardian, “Are you reflected in the new parliament?” ABC News, “What is Malcolm Turnbull up against in the new Senate?”   The New York Times, “342,000 Swings Later, Derek Jeter Calls It a Career” Jane Pong in Hong Kong Jane Pong: https://officeofjane.com/ Radiancescape The Financial Times, The Chart Doctor http://datastori.es/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/year-review-promo_v3.mp4 Related episodes What Was Big in 2012 and What Is Coming in 2013What Happened in Vis in 2015? Year Review with Andy Kirk and Robert KosaraData Vis Around The World in 2017

On the show this week, we have Andy Kriebel, Head Coach at The Information Lab, and Andy Cotgreave, Technical Evangelist at Tableau, to talk about their lovely social web series, #MakeoverMonday. This is how #MakeoverMonday works, according to Andy and Andy: “Each week we post a link to a chart, and its data, and then you rework the chart. Maybe you retell the story more effectively, or find a new story in the data. We’re curious to see the different approaches you all take. Whether it’s a simple bar chart or an elaborate infographic, we encourage everyone of all skills to partake. Together we can have broader conversations about and with data.” The series has recently gained a lot of traction: they have seen more than 2,800 entries from 470 participants, and will soon complete a whole set of entries for the year. On the show we talk about how they got started with the project, how the series works, some interesting solutions they have received, and what is coming next. Enjoy the show! Links Rhythm of Food Andy Cotgreave: http://gravyanecdote.com Andy Kriebel: http://www.vizwiz.com MakeoverMonday: http://www.makeovermonday.co.uk The Makeover Monday Pinterest Board: https://www.pinterest.com/andykriebel/makeover-monday/ Don Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things book The big Makeover Monday story on climate change Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg on Design and Redesign in Data Visualization This episode of Data Stories is sponsored by the Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies at the University of Warwick, where students study masters courses in Urban Informatics and Analytics, Big Data and Digital Media. These courses include subjects such as Visualisation, Big Data, Digital Sociology, Advanced Quantitative Research, and Spatial Methods including Geographic Information Systems all the way to User Interface Cultures and Playful Media. Find out more about studying and working with CIM at www.warwick.ac.uk/datastories.

Hey, we talk about a super lovely project on the show today! Book illustrator and product designer Abigail Ricarte and data journalist Liv Buli join us to talk about their Kickstarter project, VizKidz, an illustrated book series designed to teach kids about data visualization. The series features four lovely characters: Penelope Pie, Laney Line, Barnaby Bar, and Bertie Boxplot, each with a specific “personality.” On the show we talk about how the project started, how they designed the characters, and what it takes to launch a data visualization project on Kickstarter. If you are interested in buying the book or learning more about the project, check out their website: http://www.vizkidz.rocks/. Enjoy the show! — This episode of Data Stories is sponsored by Qlik, which allows you to explore the hidden relationships within your data that lead to meaningful insights. Check out the blog post about how Qlik’s vice president taught first graders some data visualization skills. And make sure to try out Qlik Sense for free at: qlik.de/datastories.  

In this episode, Jessica Hullman and Robert Kosara join Enrico at IEEE VIS’16 to discuss highlights from the conference, including noteworthy presentations, papers, panels, workshops, and overall major trends. (From Robert Kosara’s talk “Empire built on sand”) (From Best Paper recipient, Vega-Lite)   (From presentation, TextTile) (From presentation, “Iterating between tools to create and edit visualizations”)   LINKS Pedagogy of Data Visualization C4PGV Workshop BELIV Workshop Robert Kosara’s talk “Empire built on sand” Enrico’s BELIV keynote [slides, video] Vega-Lite (Best Paper) HindSight: Encouraging Exploration through Direct Encoding of Personal Interaction History Visualization by Demonstration Attraction-Effect in Information Visualization Map LineUps (Honorable Mention) TextTile (text visualization tool from Enrico’s lab) PROACT:  Iterative Design of a Patient-Centered Visualization for Effective Prostate Cancer Health Risk Communication WeightLifter: Visual Weight Space Exploration for Multi-Criteria Decision Making Panel: On the Death of Scientific Visualization [video] Evaluating the Impact of Binning 2D Scalar Fields The Elicitation Interview Technique: Capturing People’s Experiences of Data Representations Colorgorical (color palette generation tool) Iterating between tools to create and edit visualizations Surprise! Bayesian Weighting for De-Biasing Thematic Maps Related episodes Highlights from IEEE VIS'19 with Tamara Munzner and Robert KosaraHighlights from IEEE VIS'22 with Tamara Munzner

ProPublica – Jeff Larsonhttp://www.propublica.org On the show this week we have Jeff Larson, Data Editor at ProPublica, to talk about his team’s recent work on “Machine Bias“. Jeff and his colleagues have analyzed the automated scoring decisions made by COMPAS, one of the systems American judges use to assess the likelihood that a convicted criminal will re-offend. By looking at the COMPAS data, Jeff and his colleagues sought to determine the accuracy of the algorithm and whether it introduces significant biases into the criminal justice system — racial or otherwise. (Their finding: Yes, it seems that it does.) On the show we talk about how the software is used by judges, how the ProPublica analysis was carried out, what the team found, and what can be done to improve the situation. Jeff also gives us a small preview of other stories his team is working on and how you can go about developing similar projects. Enjoy the show! This episode of Data Stories is sponsored by Qlik, which allows you to explore the hidden relationships within your data that lead to meaningful insights. Take a look at their Presidential Election app to analyze the TV network coverage for every mention of both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. And make sure to try out Qlik Sense for free at: qlik.de/datastories. http://datastori.es/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Larson-promo_v2.mp4   Links Data analysis on GitHub: https://github.com/propublica/compas-analysis Article: “Machine Bias” Article: “Discrimination By Design” Article: “ProPublica Responds to Company’s Critique of Machine Bias Story” Article: “Technical Response to Northpointe” Article: “What Algorithmic Injustice Looks Like in Real Life” Article: “How We Analyzed the COMPAS Recidivism Algorithm” Article: “How Machines Learn to Be Racist“ Workshop: FAT ML 2016: Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency in Machine Learning Related episodes Visualization and Statistics with Andrew Gelman and Jessica Hullman

We have Professor Paul Slovic from University of Oregon on the show to talk about “Statistical Numbing.” Professor Slovic is a renowned expert on the effect of numbers and statistics on empathy (or lack thereof). His fascinating, if not depressing, experiments have consistently shown how hard it is for statistics to elicit any sense of scale in human tragedies and how numbers can often even be detrimental if the goal is to elicit compassion and generous actions from an audience. On the show, we talk about “Statistical Numbing” and it psychological underpinnings. Professor Slovic also describes his experiments and their implications. And we address one of the most important questions: Is there hope? Is there something we, as practitioners, can do to counteract these negative effects? Enjoy this deeply scientific episode and let us know what you think! This episode of Data Stories is sponsored by FreshBooks, the small business accounting software that makes your accounting tasks easy, fast and secure. FreshBooks is offering a month of free unrestricted use to all of our listeners. To claim your free month of FreshBooks, go to http://freshbooks.com/datastories and sign up for free without the use of a credit card. Note: Remember to enter “Data Stories” in the section titled “I heard about FreshBooks from…” http://datastori.es/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Paul-Slovic-promo.mp4     LINKS Prof. Paul Slovic’s homepage Prof. Slovic’s Latest Book: “Numbers and Nerves” Paper: “If I look at the mass I will never act”: Psychic numbing and genocide NYT Article: “The Arithmetic of Compassion” Wikipedia Page on Psychic Numbing Psychology Today: “Statistical Numbing: Why Millions Can Die and We Don’t Care” Daniel Kahnemann’s Book: “Thinking, Fast and Slow” Weber’s Law James Andreoni’s Warm-Glow Giving xkcd: “A Timeline of Earth’s Average Temperature” Related episodes Visualization and Statistics with Andrew Gelman and Jessica Hullman

We have Nadieh Bremer (a.k.a Visual Cinnamon) on the show to talk about her latest project, Olympic Feathers, an interactive data visualization that shows the history of olympic medals from 1896 until today. The graphics depict how medals have been distributed by discipline, country, gender and geography, and also provides interesting insights into the evolution of Olympic disciplines over time. Take a look at the images below to get a sense of the visuals before listening to the episode! Enjoy the show! This episode of Data Stories is sponsored by FreshBooks, the small business accounting software that makes your accounting tasks easy, fast and secure. FreshBooks is offering a month of free unrestricted use to all of our listeners. To claim your free month of FreshBooks, go to http://freshbooks.com/datastories and sign up for free without the use of a credit card. Note: remember to enter “Data Stories” in the section titled “I heard about FreshBooks from…”   LINKS Nadieh Bremer Project: Olympic Feathers Olympic Feathers: project web page | github page with code Animated GIF showing the different stages of the project Data Sketches – http://datasketch.es/ (12-month collaboration with Shirley Wu)

Hey! Welcome back from summer vacation! We start the new season with an experiment. In this episode, we review three talks that were given at the Information Plus Conference. The Conference took place from June 16 -18 in Vancouver, Canada, and featured a whole array of amazing speakers. For our review we selected three talks: Catherine D’Ignazio on “Creative Data Literacy: Bridging the Gap Between the Data Haves and Have-nots.” Karen Cheng on “Proving the Value of Visual Design in Scientific Communication.” Michele Mauri on “Why Designers Should Care about Wikipedia.” Listen here for selections from each presentation, plus our comments and reflections on each talk. And let us know how you like this new format! We may be able to repeat it again in the future. Special thanks to our amazing producer Destry Sibley, who curated the selection of talks and created the snippets for this episode. And many thanks to Isabel Meirelles and the Information Plus team for making the material available to us. Enjoy the show! This episode of Data Stories is sponsored by FreshBooks, the small business accounting software that makes your accounting tasks easy, fast and secure. FreshBooks is offering a month of free unrestricted use to all of our listeners. To claim your free month of FreshBooks, go to http://freshbooks.com/datastories and  sign up for free and without the use of a credit card. Note: remember to enter “Data Stories” in the section titled “I heard about FreshBooks from…” Links Information Plus Conference Catherine D’Ignazio Karen Cheng Michele Mauri Databasic.io (intro to working with data) Dayne Batten’s Blog: “3 reasons Counting is the Hardest thing in Data Science“ Book “Poor Numbers“ Book: “Visual Strategies” by Felice Frankel Bang Wong’s Nature Column “Points of View“ Andy Cotgreave‘s Makeover Monday Challenges Jon Schwabish‘s HelpMeViz Full presentations Related episodes Science Communication at SciAm w/ Jen ChristiansenData Visualization Literacy with Jeremy Boy, Helen Kennedy and Andy KirkBocoup and OpenVis Conference

This week we have Mahir Yavuz and Jan Willem Tulp on the show to talk about navigating the business side of data visualization. Mahir is Creative Director of Data Science and Visualization at R/GA and Jan Willem is a data visualization freelancer and founder of Tulp Interactive. “How do you choose which projects to work on? How do you actually get paid for them? How do you deal with ‘The Data Will Come Soon’ syndrome? And what do you do with unreasonable requests from clients?” We talk about these and other issues. This is a perfect episode for those of you who want to figure out how to make a living from data visualization. Enjoy the show! This episode of Data Stories is sponsored by Qlik, which allows you to explore the hidden relationships within your data that lead to meaningful insights. Qlik has partnered with Circle of Blue to visualize seven years of water rates data from 30 major U.S. cities. Check out the analyses and charts at the Circle of Blue blog. And make sure to try out Qlik Sense for free at: qlik.de/datastories. LINKS How to Become a Data Visualization Freelancer (The 2011 interview between Enrico and Moritz that pretty much gave birth to this podcast!) Tulp Interactive Data Visualization at R/GA Mahir Yavuz’s website Jan on Twitter, Pinterest, and TinyLetter Mahir on Twitter and LinkedIn Related episodes Bridging academia and industry with Danyel FisherInspiration or Plagiarism? w/ Bryan Connor and Mahir YavuzChallenges of Being a Vis Professional in Industry with Elijah Meeks