what’s wrong with my pie chart?!accessola2.com/superconference2016/sessions/1200wha.pdfwhat’s...

WHAT’S WRONG WITH MY PIE CHART?!

Jesse Carliner, Acting Communications Librarian & Reference Librarian Nicholas Worby, Government Information & Statistics Librarian

January 28, 2016

Developing a data visualization program from the ground up

OLA Super Conference 2016

WHAT TO EXPECT?

● HUGE field - check out #dataviz on Twitter● For information professionals ● NOT for designers or data viz pros ● Generalists -- add a new tool to your toolkit● Limited resources

OUR CONTEXT

● University of Toronto Libraries● Robarts Library - Humanities and Social Sciences Library● Reference & Research Services Department, including

Government Information and Statistics ● Map & Data Library

OUR CONTEXT Evolving User Needs

OUR CONTEXT

Increasing consultation requests

OUR CONTEXT

How did we get involved in data visualization?

WHY DATA VISUALIZATION?● Natural extension of what we already do● User demand ● Relevance● Data literacy● Form of scholarly communications● Professional practice● Another way to use our resources

WHY NOT?● Huge field● Many discipline-specific practices & requirements● Never going to be experts● Limited resources

DATA VIZ IN ACADEMIC LIBRARIES● What types of services are offered?● Which types of staff offer these services and what are

their professional/academic backgrounds?● Where are data visualization services located

administratively within institutions?● What types of software and hardware are being used?

SERVICES

● Instruction (e.g. software training, fundamentals of data visualization)

● Online learning objects (e.g. tutorials)● Visualization labs● Consultations● Drop-in help

STAFFING & ADMINISTRATION

DATALIBRARIANS

GISLIBRARIANS

VISUALIZATIONLIBRARIANS

MAPS, GIS OR DATA SERVICES

DIGITAL SCHOLARSHIP UNITS

VISUALIZATION ANALYSTS

PHD STUDENTS FACULTY

FACULTY RUN LABS WITHIN LIBRARIES

Visualization service providers

SOFTWARE

… plus other statistical software packages & GIS programs

HARDWARE & FACILITIES

NCSU Visualization LabDuke University Data Visualization Services Lab

University of RochesterUniversity of Michigan 3D Lab

● Presentation spaces● Immersive, 3D displays● Teaching spaces● High-powered

computer workstations & computing clusters

● It varies...

HOW WE GOT STARTEDInitial instruction request:● 50-minute session on best practices for data visualization

in scholarly publications including:○ an overview of useful tools○ a practical demonstration of critiquing and revising a

visualization, provided by the professor

IMMEDIATE CHALLENGES● Can we even scratch the surface in 50 minutes?● What are the norms and best practices for

visualization for the discipline and the data?● Which tools should we use?● How do we get up to speed with those tools?● How much professional development is too much

professional development?!

BUILDING CAPACITYBooks:

Edward Tufte. (1983). The Visual Display of Quantitative Information.

Katy Borner & David E. Polly. (2014). Visual Insights: A Practical Guide for Making Sense of Data.

Alberto Cairo. (2013). The Functional Art.

Colin Ware. (2004). Information Visualization: Perception for Design.

BUILDING CAPACITYFree or low-cost online courses:

Information Visualization MOOC

Instructor: Katy Borner

http://ivmooc.cns.iu.edu

Data Visualization and Infographics with D3.js

Instructor: Alberto Cairo Scott Murray

http://journalismcourses.org/D3.html

● Python● R● Cleaning data● & more!

www.coursera.org

BUILDING CAPACITY

Blogs & social media:

Nature: Points of View Twitter: #datavizhttp://bit.ly/1juf0zm

Martin Krzywinski: VizBi Conferences:http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/ http://bit.ly/1SHdtJT

BUILDING CAPACITY

Tutorial series:

Tableau:

http://www.tableau.com/learn/training

Duke Data Visualization Services Recordings:http://bit.ly/1rSwac4

BUILDING CAPACITY

Staff Training:● Library staff as instruction guinea pigs● Health Science Information Consortium of Toronto’s

annual professional development event

DEVELOPING WORKSHOPSKey considerations: Audience● What type(s) of data do they work with?● Are there discipline-specific visualisation norms, practices,

or forms?● What are your audience’s baseline tech skills like? Can they

program? Which languages?

DEVELOPING WORKSHOPSKey considerations: Resources

● How much time do you have?○ How much can you realistically cover?○ What software/techniques can students really learn?

● What computing resources are available to you?● What sample datasets can you use?

○ How much clean-up/prep will be required?

DEVELOPING WORKSHOPSStructure of 2nd workshop:

● Overview of data visualization workflow model● Best practices for visualization: theory & practice● Visualization critiques● Software tutorial● Participants create their own visualizations

DESIGN WORKFLOWModel adapted from Katy Borner’s Visual Insights

Audience & Purpose

Select and Prepare Data

Select Visualization

Form

Select Visualization

Elements

Visualize Data

Share

DEVELOPING WORKSHOPSStructure of 2nd workshop:● Overview of data visualization workflow model● Best practices for visualization: theory & practice● Visualization critiques● Software tutorial● Participants create their own visualizations

BEST PRACTICES: THEORY

Source: Cairo, Alberto. The Functional Art, p.120

Graphical perceptual accuracy,Cleveland & McGill 1984

BEST PRACTICES

Use consistent axes when comparing two adjacent graphs!

DEVELOPING WORKSHOPSStructure of 2nd workshop:● Overview of data visualization workflow model● Best practices for visualization: theory & practice● Visualization critiques● Software tutorial● Participants create their own visualizations

CRITIQUING VISUALIZATIONS

Differing scales?

Exaggerating data?

Appropriate colour choice?

Source: The Fraser Institute: http://bit.ly/1nuqPg6

Problems!

SOFTWARE TUTORIALWhy Tableau:

● Requires no programming● Drag & drop functionality● Supports a wide range of visualization types● Tableau Public is FREE!

SOFTWARE TUTORIALApproach:

● Highly-structured, 45-minute tutorial creating basic visualizations using prepared datasets

● Used public health, economic, and humanities datasets○ Data selection & prep most time-consuming part

of preparation

ASSESSING OUR WORK

Well-attended

Positive feedback

ASSESSING OUR WORK

1. Were your overall expectations of the workshop met? [ 30 ] Yes [ 0 ] Somewhat [ 0 ] No

2. Did you find the pace of the workshop?[ 1 ] Too fast [ 29 ] Just Right [ 0 ] Too Slow

3. Did you find the concepts and theories useful?[ 26 ] Yes [ 4 ] Somewhat [ 0 ] No

4. Did you find the Tableau tutorial?

[ 2 ] Too basic [ 27 ] Just Right [ 1 ] Too Advanced

5. How likely are you to use what you learned today in your professional practice?[ 19 ] Definitely [ 11 ] Maybe [ 0 ] No

HSICT Workshop Feedback

ASSESSING OUR WORK

“Every aspect within a visualization has a purpose.”

“I will take greater care to ensure that the message I want to convey in my visualizations, is the message that I intended to deliver. “

“Effective communication is so important in the workplace and I will definitely take into account all the principles talked about today.”

“The audience will get more out of a visualization if it is tailored to the data type.”

Graduate Student Feedback

ASSESSING OUR WORK

“I think clarification of my purpose and audience is very important which might just save me a lot of trouble later.”

“[I] realize that it is important to be a bit more selective in this process [of colour selection]. It had never occurred to me to ensure that my visuals were accessible to colour-blind people.”

“I learned the importance of choosing every visualization element carefully...these elements can be optimized to best convey data, as well as avoided in situations where trends are not actually there that would be falsely conveyed.”

Graduate Student Feedback

ASSESSING OUR WORK

“Ease of use also makes Tableau a great resource. I can work efficiently and display my visualizations in a more diverse way than Excel does (or that I know how to do within Excel).”

“Tableau...makes data visualization much easier than other tools. To this point, I have been using Microsoft Excel, which is much more counter-intuitive and time consuming.”

“I hope to continue to explore Tableau in the near future and investigate its use in my upcoming poster and PowerPoint presentations.”

Graduate Student Feedback

LESSONS LEARNED

● Can’t do it all or do it on your own● Huge demand and lots of opportunities● Focus and draw on what you know● Don’t let them bring their own data● There is no one perfect software● There’s always more to learn

FUTURE PLANS● Enlist more people and their expertise ● More workshops● Offer staff training● Pilot consultations ● More software and software support ● Revamp the data viz research guide● Hire a grad student with programming and data viz skills

And, the dream….get a data visualization lab!

QUESTIONS

QUESTIONS?Nicholas Worby

Government Information & Statistics Librarian

nicholas.worby@utoronto.ca

Jesse Carliner

Acting Communications Librarian & Reference Librarian

jesse.carliner@utoronto.ca

University of Toronto Libraries

THANK YOU!

IMAGE CREDITSMarketing icon, created by Yamini Ahluwalia from the Noun Project

Questions icon, created by Vicons Design from the Noun Project

Sapling icon, created by Michelle Zamparo from the Noun Project

Sisyphus icon, created by Nikolay Necheuhin from the Noun Project

Thumbs-up icon, created Centis Menant from the Noun Project