Making data mean more through storytelling
Ted talk by Data Scientist Ben Wellington
@ TEDxBroadway
In his talk Ben Wellington tells the story of how he started doing data visualization of New York City. In 2011 a free public database called NYC Open Data was created. Using this data Evans created his first visualization about traffic accidents involving bikes, pinpointing hotspots in the city. After it got picked up by multiple online news sites, he realized that the closer you are to the data the more you care about it. You have to connect with people and their experiences and make it relatable. So the next data he visualized were which pharmacies cover which areas in the city, the percentage of male and female city bike riders as well as the percentage of parking tickets on cars with out-of-state plates. In his work he tried to focus on one idea, keep it simple and explore the things you know best to tell the most effective story. With data storytelling you should try and make an impact. Wellington does this by trying to impact city government and shows some of the best responses in his presentation.
Turning Bad Charts into Compelling Data Stories
Ted talk by Data Storytelling Trainer Dominic Bohan
@ TEDxYouth@Singapore
Dominic Bohan is a data storytelling trainer talking about charts, studies, history and how to turn data into stories. He believes that data storytelling can save the world and even save lives.
Data is useless unless human beings can interpret, analyse and understand it.
During his talk Bohan describes three simple principles to great data communication: Using a human friendly chart type, being ruthlessly minimalistic and having a clear key takeaway.
To dive into these principles Bohan describes an 1984 study by researchers Cleveland and McGill on which charts humans are good at interpreting. According to him, they found out that human beings are best at encoding numbers by length and position. By talking about history approaches, studies and their outcome as well as giving examples and using the recommended charts, Bohan shows how (not) to use data visualisation and how to utilize them to tell engaging stories that mean something to us.
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