Data Viz

Considerations and Practical Tips

 

 

Branden DuPont

Medical College of Wisconsin

 Datashare @ MCW IHE = Local IDS

 

 

 

 

"[C]onnecting regular public agency records, integrated data systems enable policymakers, practitioners, advocates and researchers to look across programs and add critical depth and details to complex social issues." - Annie E Casey Foundation

Building A Visualization Project

  • Back end
    • Getting Data
    • Clean/reshape/join
    • Generate Variables
    • Run modeling, etc
    • Automate this process (ETL)
  • Front End
    • Build web page
    • Design visualizations
    • User interaction

Front End

  • Overview of general concepts and considerations
    • type of viz project
    • where it lives
    • visualization design
    • thoughts on color
  • Reference examples throughout
  • Avoid technical overview or in-depth overview of tools

Which Type of Data Visualization Project Do I Have?

  • Exploratory
    • provide multiple analyses
    • filters for various perspectives
    • question is open ended
    • more interactivity
  • Explanatory
    • explore and understand an analysis
    • similar to a policy brief
    • question is discrete
    • less interactivity

Susie Lu:

Explanatory vs Exploratory

 

Where Does The Visualization Live?

  • Existing website vs. spinning up your own
  • Web development can get complex
    • Databases, HTML, CSS, Javascript, or Framework (Django, Ruby on Rails)
    • SEO
    • Google Analytics/Tracking
  • Not a web developer?
    • Wordpress (no-code)
    • Wix/Wordpress (no-code)
    • Static Site Generators

Why Static Sites Over Free Alternatives

  • Easy to learn and deploy
    • basic command line
    • markdown to generate content (instead of html/css)
    • free templates to build on
    • can be learned
  • Cheap and easy to maintain
    • no database
    • small domain name cost
  • Versioning
  • Allow easily embedding of interactive (and responsive) visualizations

Themes/Examples

How Do I Choose the Right Data Viz?

  • Good visualization is difficult, complex, and takes practice
  • Good place to start: FT Visual Vocabulary
  • Most of these can be made in standard viz tools
  • Collect examples you like (Washington Post, ProPublica, Urban Institute, Flowing Data)

How to Improve Chart Design?

Elijah Meeks

 

  • Don't use the chart defaults, be intentional about design
  • Use annotations whenever possible -- even more than interactivity
  • Chart's meaning should be clear at a glance. Highlight or add narrative to key insights.
  • When appropriate add elements like
    • data source
    • contextual notes about the data,
    • last chart update
    • who made the chart

How to Use Color Effectively?

Lisa Charlotte Ross

  • Color in data visualization is difficult
  • Stick to a brand theme
  • Best advice is to read several blog posts by Lisa Charlotte Ross
    • Explain what your colors encode
    • Grey is the most important color
    • Use the same color for the same variables when appropriate
    • Light colors for low values
    • No more than 7 colors: 2 to 3 is ideal
  • Use a color palette generator

Questions?

Made with Slides.com