VISUALIZING INFORMATION: Storytelling with graphs, maps, and diagrams

DESCRIPTION OF EVENT

Registration for one day includes lunch and a copy of the book of the corresponding instructor

(Creating More Eff?ective Graphs or The Functional Art)

Registration for both days includes lunches and copies of both books

ALBERTO CAIRO - THE INSIGHTFUL ART (June 11)

The Insightful Art is an exploration of the convergence of news infographics, data visualization, and storytelling. This workshop begins by describing a conceptual framework that ties all areas related to the visual display of information together. Then, it proceeds to describe how to design efficient storytelling graphical displays from the bottom up, beginning with how to decide what graphic form is more appropriate, what structure to use, and how to combine words with visuals. This is the outline of the class:

1. Functional, insightful, beautiful: A short introduction to infographics and visualization.

2. The curse of information: Ethical challenges in the age of data.

3. Heuristics to decide what graphic form is the most appropriate for your information and for the story you wish to tell.

4. Basic principles of Graphic Design for non-designers: How type, color, and layout can enhance your graphics

5. Storytelling with graphs, maps, diagrams, and illustrations: Characters, plot, and narrative structures.

6. The importance of copy-writing.

7. What lies ahead: From interaction to motion.

NAOMI ROBBINS - COMMUNICATING DATA CLEARLY (June 12)

Communicating Data Clearly describes how to draw clear, concise, accurate graphs that are easier to understand than many of the graphs one sees today. The tutorial emphasizes how to avoid common mistakes that produce confusing or even misleading graphs. Graphs for one, two, three, and many variables are covered as well as general principles for creating effective graphs.This workshop begins by reviewing human perception and our ability to decode graphical information. It continues by:

1. Ranking elementary graphical perception tasks to identify those that we do the best.

2. Showing the limitations of many common graphical constructions.

3. Demonstrating newer, more effective graphical forms developed on the basis of the ranking.

4. Providing general principles for creating effective graphs, as well as metrics on the quality of graphs.

5. Commenting on software packages that produce graphs.

6. Comparing the same data using different graph forms so the audience can see how understanding depends on the graphical construction used.

8. Presenting Mosaic Plots and other graphical methods for categorical data.

Since scales have a profound effect on our interpretation of graphs, the section on general principles contains a detailed discussion of scales including:

1. To include or not to include zero?

2. When do logarithmic scales improve clarity?

3. What are breaks in scales and how should they be used?

4. Are two scales better than one? How can we distinguish between informative and deceptive double axes?

5. Can a scale "hide" data? How can this be avoided?

Questions: naomi@nbr-graphs.com alberto.cairo@gmail.com