![Changing Perceptions Through Data
While graphs and charts can lead to misunderstandings, there is
ultimately “truth in numbers.” As
Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner say in Freakonomics,
“[T]eachers and criminals and real-estate
agents may lie, and politicians, and even C.I.A. analysts. But
numbers don’t.” Indeed, consideration of
data can often be the easiest way to glean objective insights.
Again from Freakonomics: “There is
nothing like the sheer power of numbers to scrub away layers of
confusion and contradiction.”
Data can help us understand the world as it is, not as we believe
it to be. As Hans Rosling
demonstrates, it’s often not ignorance but our preconceived
ideas that get in the way of understanding
the world as it is. Publicly-available statistics can reshape our
world view: Rosling encourages us to “let
the dataset change your mindset.”
Chris Jordan’s powerful images of waste and addiction make us
face, rather than deny, the facts. It’s
easy to hear and then ignore that we use and discard 1 million
plastic cups every 6 hours on airline
flights alone. When we’re confronted with his powerful image,
we engage with that fact on an entirely
different level (and may never see airline plastic cups in the
same way again).
The ability to see data expands our perceptions of the world in
ways that we’re just beginning to
understand. Computer simulations allow us to see how diseases
spread, how forest fires might be
contained, how terror networks communicate. We gain
understanding of these things in ways that](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/tedwileyvisualizing-221026125619-a08c9a3d/85/TED-Wiley-Visualizing-docx-15-320.jpg)
TED Wiley Visualizing .docx
- 2. M at er ia ls 1 Statistics: Visualizing Data Introductory Essay from the Locks The Reality Today All of us now are being blasted by information design. It's being poured into our eyes through the Web, and we're all visualizers now; we're all demanding a visual aspect to our information… And if you're navigating a dense information jungle, coming across a beautiful graphic or a lovely data visualization, it's a relief, it's like coming across a clearing in the jungle. –David McCandless
- 3. In today’s complex ‘information jungle,’ David McCandless observes that “Data is the new soil.” McCandless, a data journalist and information designer, celebrates data as a ubiquitous resource providing a fertile and creative medium from which new ideas and understanding can grow. McCandless’s inspiration, statistician Hans Rosling, builds on this idea in his own TEDTalk with his compelling image of flowers growing out of data/soil. These ‘flowers’ represent the many insights that can be gleaned from effective visualization of data. We’re just learning how to till this soil and make sense of the mountains of data constantly being generated. As Gary King, Director of Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science says in his New York Times article “The Age of Big Data”: “It’s a revolution. We’re really just getting under way. But the march of quantification, made possible by enormous new sources of data, will sweep through academia, business and government. There is no area that is going to be untouched.” How do we deal with all this data without getting information overload? How do we use data to gain real insight into the world? Finding ways to pull interesting information out of data can be very rewarding, both personally and professionally. The managing editor of Financial Times observed on CNN’s Your Money: “The people who are able to in a sophisticated and practical way analyze that data are going to have terrific jobs." Those who learn how to present data in effective ways will be valuable in every field.
- 5. or M at er ia ls 2 Many people, when they think of data, think of tables filled with numbers. But this long-held notion is eroding. Today, we’re generating streams of data that are often too complex to be presented in a simple “table.” In his TEDTalk, Blaise Aguera y Arcas explores images as data, while Deb Roy uses audio, video, and the text messages in social media as data. Some may also think that only a few specialized professionals can draw insights from data. When we look at data in the right way, however, the results can be fun, insightful, even whimsical--and accessible to everyone! Who knew, for example, that there are more relationship break-ups on Monday than on any other day of the week, or that the most break-ups (at least those discussed on Facebook) occur in mid-December? David McCandless discovered this by analyzing thousands of Facebook status updates. Data, Data Everywhere There is more data available to us now than we can possibly
- 6. process. Every minute, Internet users add the following to the big data pool1: • 204,166,667 email messages sent • More than 2,000,000 Google searches • 684,478 pieces of content added on Facebook • $272,070 spent by consumers via online shopping • More than 100,000 tweets on Twitter • 47,000 app downloads from Apple • 34,722 “likes” on Facebook for different brands and organizations • 27,778 new posts on Tumblr blogs • 3,600 new photos on Instagram • 3,125 new photos on Flickr • 2,083 check-ins on Foursquare • 571 new websites created • 347 new blog posts published on Wordpress • 217 new mobile web users • 48 hours of new video on YouTube These numbers are almost certainly higher now, as you read this. And this just describes a small piece of the data being generated and stored by humanity. We’re all leaving data trails—not just on the Internet, but in everything we do. This includes reams of financial data (from credit cards, businesses, and Wall Street), demographic data on the world’s populations, meteorological data on weather and the environment, retail sales data that records everything we buy, nutritional data on food and restaurants, sports data of all types, and so on. 1 Data obtained June 2012 from “How Much Data Is Created Every Minute?” on http://mashable.com/2012/06/22/data-created-every-minute/ .
- 8. M at er ia ls 3 Governments are using data to search for terrorist plots, retailers are using it to maximize marketing strategies, and health organizations are using it to track outbreaks of the flu. But did you ever think of collecting data on every minute of your child’s life? That’s precisely what Deb Roy did. He recorded 90,000 hours of video and 140,000 hours of audio during his son’s first years. That’s a lot of data! He and his colleagues are using the data to understand how children learn language, and they’re now extending this work to analyze publicly available conversations on social media, allowing them to take “the real-time pulse of a nation.” Data can provide us with new and deeper insight into our world. It can help break stereotypes and build understanding. But the sheer quantity of data, even in just any one small area of interest, is overwhelming. How can we make sense of some of this data in an insightful way? The Power of Visualizing Data
- 9. Visualization can help transform these mountains of data into meaningful information. In his TEDTalk, David McCandless comments that the sense of sight has by far the fastest and biggest bandwidth of any of the five senses. Indeed, about 80% of the information we take in is by eye. Data that seems impenetrable can come alive if presented well in a picture, graph, or even a movie. Hans Rosling tells us that “Students get very excited – and policy-makers and the corporate sector – when they can see the data.” It makes sense that, if we can effectively display data visually, we can make it accessible and understandable to more people. Should we worry, however, that by condensing data into a graph, we are simplifying too much and losing some of the important features of the data? Let’s look at a fascinating study conducted by researchers Emre Soyer and Robin Hogarth. The study was conducted on economists, who are certainly no strangers to statistical analysis. Three groups of economists were asked the same question concerning a dataset: • One group was given the data and a standard statistical analysis of the data; 72% of these economists got the answer wrong. • Another group was given the data, the statistical analysis, and a graph; still 61% of these economists got the answer wrong. • A third group was given only the graph, and only 3% got the answer wrong. Visualizing data can sometimes be less misleading than using
- 10. the raw numbers and statistics! What about all the rest of us, who may not be professional economists or statisticians? Nathalie Miebach finds that making art out of data allows people an alternative entry into science. She transforms mountains of weather data into tactile physical structures and musical scores, adding both touch and hearing to the sense of sight to build even greater understanding of data. http://emresoyer.com/Publications_files/Soyer%20%26%20Hog arth_2012.pdf T E D | W ile y V is ua liz in
- 11. g D at a In st ru ct or M at er ia ls 4 Another artist, Chris Jordan, is concerned about our ability to comprehend big numbers. As citizens of an ever-more connected global world, we have an increased need to get useable information from big data—big in terms of the volume of numbers as well as their size. Jordan’s art is designed to help us process such numbers, especially numbers that relate to issues of addiction and waste. For example, Jordan notes that the United States has the largest percentage of its population in prison of any country on earth: 2.3 million people in prison in the United States in
- 12. 2005 and the number continues to rise. Jordan uses art, in this case a super-sized image of 2.3 million prison jumpsuits, to help us see that number and to help us begin to process the societal implications of that single data value. Because our brains can’t truly process such a large number, his artwork makes it real. The Role of Technology in Visualizing Data The TEDTalks in this collection depend to varying degrees on sophisticated technology to gather, store, process, and display data. Handling massive amounts of data (e.g., David McCandless tracking 10,000 changes in Facebook status, Blaise Aguera y Arcas synching thousands of online images of the Notre Dame Cathedral, or Deb Roy searching for individual words in 90,000 hours of video tape) requires cutting-edge computing tools that have been developed specifically to address the challenges of big data. The ability to manipulate color, size, location, motion, and sound to discover and display important features of data in a way that makes it readily accessible to ordinary humans is a challenging task that depends heavily on increasingly sophisticated technology. The Importance of Good Visualization There are good ways and bad ways of presenting data. Many examples of outstanding presentations of data are shown in the TEDTalks. However, sometimes visualizations of data can be ineffective or downright misleading. For example, an inappropriate scale
- 13. might make a relatively small difference look much more substantial than it should be, or an overly complicated display might obfuscate the main relationships in the data. Statistician Kaiser Fung’s blog Junk Charts offers many examples of poor representations of data (and some good ones) with descriptions to help the reader understand what makes a graph effective or ineffective. For more examples of both good and bad representations of data, see data visualization architect Andy Kirk’s blog at visualisingdata.com. Both consistently have very current examples from up-to-date sources and events. Creativity, even artistic ability, helps us see data in new ways. Magic happens when interesting data meets effective design: when statistician meets designer (sometimes within the same person). We are fortunate to live in a time when interactive and animated graphs are becoming commonplace, and these tools can be incredibly powerful. Other times, simpler graphs might be more effective. The key is to present data in a way that is visually appealing while allowing the data to speak for itself. T E D | W
- 15. Changing Perceptions Through Data While graphs and charts can lead to misunderstandings, there is ultimately “truth in numbers.” As Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner say in Freakonomics, “[T]eachers and criminals and real-estate agents may lie, and politicians, and even C.I.A. analysts. But numbers don’t.” Indeed, consideration of data can often be the easiest way to glean objective insights. Again from Freakonomics: “There is nothing like the sheer power of numbers to scrub away layers of confusion and contradiction.” Data can help us understand the world as it is, not as we believe it to be. As Hans Rosling demonstrates, it’s often not ignorance but our preconceived ideas that get in the way of understanding the world as it is. Publicly-available statistics can reshape our world view: Rosling encourages us to “let the dataset change your mindset.” Chris Jordan’s powerful images of waste and addiction make us face, rather than deny, the facts. It’s easy to hear and then ignore that we use and discard 1 million plastic cups every 6 hours on airline flights alone. When we’re confronted with his powerful image, we engage with that fact on an entirely different level (and may never see airline plastic cups in the same way again). The ability to see data expands our perceptions of the world in ways that we’re just beginning to understand. Computer simulations allow us to see how diseases spread, how forest fires might be contained, how terror networks communicate. We gain understanding of these things in ways that
- 16. were unimaginable only a few decades ago. When Blaise Aguera y Arcas demonstrates Photosynth, we feel as if we’re looking at the future. By linking together user- contributed digital images culled from all over the Internet, he creates navigable “immensely rich virtual models of every interesting part of the earth” created from the collective memory of all of us. Deb Roy does somewhat the same thing with language, pulling in publicly available social media feeds to analyze national and global conversation trends. Roy sums it up with these powerful words: “What’s emerging is an ability to see new social structures and dynamics that have previously not been seen. …The implications here are profound, whether it’s for science, for commerce, for government, or perhaps most of all, for us as individuals.” Let’s begin with the TEDTalk from David McCandless, a self- described “data detective” who describes how to highlight hidden patterns in data through its artful representation. T E
- 18. 1 Statistics: Visualizing Data Putting It Together: Summary Essay and Activities What’s Next? Trends and Questions in Statistics and Data Visualization TED designed Visualizing Data to enable learners to recognize the powerful insights data can provide when presented in a compelling fashion. We will continue to be inundated with data as technology makes it easier and easier to collect the data. Learning how to “see” the patterns and connections in data will become an increasingly sought after and valuable skill in virtually every field. Learning how to create effective data visualizations will be even more valuable. Coping with the deluge of what we call “Big Data” is one of the primary challenges for statisticians, data analysts, and those who can benefit from the information it contains. Think of the data you have generated in the past 24 hours – a record of every website you’ve visited, credit card purchases, surveillance video at a business your visited, GPS tracking of where your phone has traveled, road sensors that have monitored a vehicle you were in, photos posted online, every text, tweet, and email have all been added to the day’s store of new data.
- 19. Organizing all of this data to be useful, while maintaining appropriate safeguards on individual privacy, is an ongoing concern. New technology enables us to collect and store vast amounts of data, but developing technologies that allow us to access, process, and display it in an understandable form to address questions of interest is a daunting task. While the TEDTalks in this series show how experts can extract and communicate valuable information from data, one of the major challenges is to develop this capacity in non-experts who have questions that data can help address, and to educate the general public to be intelligent consumers of data-based analyses. In the activities that follow, we encourage you to explore other uses and styles of data visualization. These options just begin to scratch the surface. Start looking and you will find data visualizations being used in almost any field. What are you interested in? Go explore the data and see what you find! Summary Activities 1. Watch Nic Marks’s TEDTalk “The Happy Planet Index”. Marks argues that when we measure only economic indicators such as GDP, we are focusing on the wrong things. What does Marks think we should be measuring? How are these things related? How does he use data visualization to make his point? In his main graph, what
- 20. should we be focusing on for http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/nic_marks_the_happy_planet_ index.html T E D | W ile y V is ua liz in g D at a In st ru ct
- 21. or M at er ia ls 2 the countries shown in the bottom left? What should we be focusing on for the countries in the top right? Consider Marks alongside Hans Rosling, comparing the messages they share about the relative well-being of the world’s nations and the data visualization tools they use to make their points. 2. Watch this NOAA video on CO 2 levels in the atmosphere. This powerful visual representation of data starts out only showing a small piece of the full graph. Why do you think the designers created it this way? Can you think of other ways the designers might have displayed this data? How might Nathalie Miebach have represented this scientific data? 3. “Exploring Climate and Development Links” from the World Bank shows excellent visualization of predicted temperature and precipitation changes over the next century
- 22. under different scenarios. Look at projected temperature changes and projected precipitation changes under both scenarios. Be sure to scroll around on the map to find your own region. Why do you think the designers chose the colors that they did? Do you find the colors effective? When you click on the map, an overlaid graph appears. What does this graph show? 4. Watch the CDC’s animated demonstration on trends in obesity levels in the United States. You’ll need to scroll down to the bottom of the page to find the graphic labeled “Percent of Obese (BMI ≥ 30) in U.S. Adults.” The animation shows how obesity rates have changed over the period from 1985 to 2010. Be sure to watch the entire thing: Stop the animation and use the previous button to scroll it back to 1985 and play it from the start. Do you find the data visualization effective? Does this animation catch your eye and stay with you more than reading a paragraph describing the obesity epidemic in the U.S.? Discuss the use of color in this data visualization. Do you find the colors effective? Would you change anything in the design of this data visualization? How might David McCandless or Chris Jordan have represented this data? 5. Read the blog post “How Governments Can Better Use Data Visualization” by economist and data visualization creator Jon Schwabish. In his blog post, Schwabish shares five examples of poor graphical representations of data. Pick two of the five to analyze. In each
- 23. case: Describe why Schwabish believes the graph is not effective. Do you agree with his assessment? Discuss ways in which the data might have been presented in a more effective way. 6. The webcomic xkcd.com includes movie narrative charts that illustrate character interactions over space and time. These include charts for the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the original Star Wars trilogy, Jurassic Park, 12 Angry Men, and Primer. What do you think about presenting the information this way? Explain why the charts for the last two movies 12 Angry Men and Primer are not as interesting as the first two. (You might have to look up a summary of each movie if you’re not familiar with one or both.) Name another movie for http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/history.html http://climate4development.worldbank.org/#/risk http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html http://www.visualisingdata.com/index.php/2012/08/guest-post- how-governments-can-better-use-data-visualization/ http://xkcd.com/657/ T E D | W ile
- 24. y V is ua liz in g D at a In st ru ct or M at er ia ls 3 which you think this method would be interesting and effective.
- 25. This space/time illustration for movies might remind you of the visualization method used by Deb Roy. How are they similar? 7. The” Many Eyes” project sponsored by IBM includes lots of interesting data visualizations and has features that let users create their own visualizations based on a vast array of contributed datasets at the site or by uploading their own data. You can search by keyword for data that interests you and choose from an assortment of visualization methods to create and modify displays within the site. Give it a try! You can publish a visualization you create to the site, submit comments on those already there--and maybe someone else will comment on yours. 8. Google Fusion Tables is an application that allows you to combine your own data with other data on the web, collaborating with other users, visualizing the data and sharing it via Google Drive. Google provides excellent tutorials on creating data visualizations and the application also points users to many public data sources. Pick one of the data sources and create your own data visualization. http://www-958.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/manyeyes/ http://www.google.com/fusiontables8. Google Fusion Tables is an application that allows you to combine your own data with
- 26. other data on the web, collaborating with other users, visualizing the data and sharing it via Google Drive. Google provides excellent tutorials on creating data visua� Lab 2 Guide: Visualizing Data This week’s lab is designed to give you an introduction to visualizing data in creative and intellectually rewarding ways. Complete the following steps for this week’s lab. 1. Read Intro Essay for TED Studies Statistics: Visualizing Data. 2. Watch Modules 1-6. a. These TEDTalks are pretty cool examples of creative uses of data. 3. Read Putting It Together: Summary Essay a. Complete activities 1, 2, 3, and 6. b. Respond to the activity questions in your lab report. Make your responses brief but clear. Use the Lab 2 Report Template.
- 27. 2-Watch Modules 1-6. The beauty of data visualization - David McCandless https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Zg-C8AAIGgThe best stats you've ever seen | Hans Rosling https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVimVzgtD6wNathalie Miebach: Art made of storms https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbhNaj88uL4Chris Jordan: Turning powerful stats into art https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f09lQ8Q1iKEBlaise Aguera y Arcas: Jaw-dropping Photosynth demo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-8k8GEGZPMDeb Roy: The birth of a word https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RE4ce4mexrU 3-Read Putting It Together: Summary Essay a. b- Respond to the activity questions in your lab report. Make your responses brief but clear. Use the Lab 2 Report Template. Lab 2 Report Template Use the following template to complete your lab report. Before turning the report in, delete unnecessary information, such as these directions and examples, and save the report with a file
- 28. name using the following convention: Your Last Name_Lab 2 Report (Ex: Petrak_Lab 2 Report). Each section of the report should start on a new page (as in this template). Putting it Together Activity Responses 1. The Happy Planet Index Watch Nic Marks’s TEDTalk “The Happy Planet Index”. Marks argues that when we measure only economic indicators such as GDP, we are focusing on the wrong things. a. What does Marks think we should be measuring? b. How are these things related? c. How does he use data visualization to make his point? d. In his main graph, what should we be focusing on for the countries shown in the bottom left? e. What should we be focusing on for the countries in the top right? f. Consider Marks alongside Hans Rosling (Module 1 speaker in this lab), comparing the messages they share about the relative well-being of the world’s nations and the data visualization tools they use to make their points. 2. NOAA video on CO2 levels in the atmosphere Watch this NOAA video on CO2 levels in the atmosphere. This powerful visual representation of data starts out only showing a small piece of the full graph. a. Why do you think the designers created it this way? b. Can you think of other ways the designers might have displayed this data? c. How might Nathalie Miebach have represented this scientific data? (Nathalie Miebach is the author of the Module 4 talk, which is not required watching for this lab. A simple search about her is enough to give you a good idea of how she would conceptualize a representation of data.
- 29. 3. Exploring Climate and Development Links” from the World Bank “Exploring Climate and Development Links” from the World Bank shows excellent visualization of predicted temperature and precipitation changes over the next century under different scenarios. Look at projected temperature changes and projected precipitation changes under both scenarios. Be sure to scroll around on the map to find your own region. a. Why do you think the designers chose the colors that they did? b. Do you find the colors effective? c. When you click on the map, an overlaid graph appears. d. What does this graph show? 6. Movie Narrative Charts from xkcd.com The web comic xkcd.com includes movie narrative charts that
- 30. illustrate character interactions over space and time. These include charts for the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the original Star Wars trilogy, Jurassic Park, 12 Angry Men, and Primer. a. What do you think about presenting the information this way? b. Explain why the charts for the last two movies 12 Angry Men and Primer are not as interesting as the first two. (You might have to look up a summary of each movie if you’re not familiar with one or both.) c. Name another movie (or series) for which you think this method would be interesting and effective. Explain your choice. a. If you can’t think of a movie that would be an interesting illustration of this method, then give an example of a movie (or series) that is especially poorly suited to this method and explain your choice. d. This space/time illustration for movies might remind you of the visualization method used by Deb Roy. How are they similar?