What makes a visualization good; Avoid the pitfalls of averages; 'Outliers are the story more than trends'
Sam Manzer on capturing people attention and motivating to action by presenting data well
On June 30th, SAM MANZER, a data scientist and engineer specializing in interactive educational platforms, joined Data Journalism DC to talk about principles for maximizing the value of data in your projects. Using several recent articles as examples, Sam demonstrated how small changes in data analysis and presentation can dramatically increase a story's ability to educate and inspire readers.
Sam is the co-founder of Strategic ML, an interactive online platform that brings leaders up-to-speed on the latest machine learning technologies in a fraction of the time required by traditional approaches.
On working with a lot of data.
(1) Choose subsets that are key and that convey your message most effectively; (2) Do appropriate transformation with those subsets to get them to a form that clearly indicates what you want to say; and (3) Visualize them into graphic forms appropriately.
On challenges associated with averages.
Be careful with averages. Outliers are the story more than the trends in many cases (danger of “putting a line through”).
On the opportunities interactivity offer.
Engage the reader by making your visualization interactive. It often requires little work.
On what makes a visualization good.
Aligned with the story you want to tell: it grasps the central point that you want to make. Don’t pick a visualization if you can do a simpler one. Avoid use fancy visualizations. They may confuse the reader.
You can find Sam on Github: https://github.com/samuelmanzer
The next Data Journalism DC program is TODAY at 5pm EST.
HUO JINGNAN, an assistant producer on NPR's investigations team, will explain what makes a data story newsworthy, share tips on how to pitch data journalism stories, and talk about data’s role in journalism today.
Registration is open and required, both on Meetup, here AND in this RSVP form, here, to receive the Zoom link by email.
Data Journalism DC is bringing together data scientists, journalists, innovators, researchers, and anyone with an interest in public issues.
If you want to know more about the data journalism DC community, have a suggestion, question, idea, or want to share your research, tool, or data, please reply to this email or message Flavius at 202-370-1437 (also Whatsapp).