data viz for academic research
DESCRIPTION
I shared my thoughts on the opportunity of data visualization with a group of academic researchers and faculty members at the University of Washington, Bothell on May 28th, 2014. Here are the visuals that I usedTRANSCRIPT
on academia
and
data visualization
A discourse…
Ben Jones
Sr. Mgr, Tableau Public
@DataRemixed
May 28, 2014
A Canadian from Los Angeles who started a
dataviz website
…and moved to Washington to join Tableau
About Ben
Free software to quickly create and
share interactive data graphics on the web
http://www.nhl.com/ice/careerstats.htm
Gathering
Structuring
Analyzing
Communicating
Tables, Spreadsheets, Lists
Charts, Graphs, Maps
INFORMATION INSIGHT
http://dataremixed.com website stats, Aug 2011 – May 2014
Source | Google Analytics
why data visualization?
because visualization amplifies cognition… first for you, then for your audience
question gathering
data
structuring
data
exploring
data
communicating
data
The Data Discovery Horse Track
Anscomb’s Quartet
data visualization isn’t new
it’s been going on for centuries now
Joseph Priestley, 1769
William Playfair, 1786
John Snow, 1854
Florence Nightingale, 1858
visualization is for academics
some of the most influential findings have been communicated visually
“What motivates me now
are the ideas I developed
10, 20 or 30 years ago,
and the feeling that
these ideas may be lost
if I don’t push them a
little bit further.”
-Benoit Mandlebrot
UW: West, Bergstrom, Jacquet, Brooks, Aragon
http://www.eigenfactor.org/gender/#
Visualization can be both
c l e a r
AND
beautiful
Data should be visually appealing
Data should be easy to understand
but visualization isn’t a panacea
just because you visualize something, doesn’t mean it’s intelligible
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kühlschifffahrt
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pie_chart_of_US_population_by_state.png
http://flowingdata.com/2014/04/04/fox-news-bar-chart-gets-it-wrong/
http://phylonetworks.blogspot.com/2012/03/biological-versus-phylogenetic-networks.html
Protein interaction network
and hey, visualization can be fun
just because you visualize something, doesn’t mean it’s intelligible
What does
this remind
you of?
Via Christopher Ingraham Twitter: @_cingraham
Oh, and you can only
use exploded pies
when telling jokes…
but it can also be heavy-hitting
some facts about our world are very grave
visualization is an opportunity for
academic research
getting your ideas out there, making them stick
3 Classic Problems:
The Technical Problem
The Semantic Problem
The Effectiveness Problem
C. Shannon W. Weaver
UW: West, Bergstrom, Jacquet, Brooks, Aragon
http://www.eigenfactor.org/gender/#
My message to academic researchers:
Don’t just communicate your findings with your peers using
jargon.
Use visualization to communicate your findings with the world.
There is an appetite for your ideas. If you don’t push them, who
will?