{"id":1689,"date":"2014-02-07T10:14:13","date_gmt":"2014-02-07T18:14:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/freechoicelab\/?p=1689"},"modified":"2014-02-07T10:14:13","modified_gmt":"2014-02-07T18:14:13","slug":"power-design-translating-complex-data-visual-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/freechoicelab\/2014\/02\/07\/power-design-translating-complex-data-visual-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Power by Design: Translating Complex Data into a Visual Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I continue to explore the field of science communication, I have been thinking about HOW this information is communicated and what tools we use.\u00a0 As new technology becomes available, we have the opportunity to use different methods and promote our message with a wider audience.\u00a0 In my last post on Sharing Science through Social Media<\/a>, I talked about how the research enterprise is discussing the use of social media.\u00a0 There is a learning curve on how to use these platforms effectively, but they give researchers a way to practice communicating their results with the public.\u00a0 A researcher can share interpretations of their data in a variety of formats including posters, presentations, and peer-reviewed publications, but there are additional ways to represent data visually beyond the bar chart.<\/p>\n

One technique of combining complex data with graphics is an \u201cinfographic\u201d.\u00a0 This format is not new, for example, weather forecasts are representations of atmospheric models in a simplified visual layout.\u00a0 Recently infographics have gained popularity online as a means of visualizing and sharing data on any number of topics and because it is easy to share them.\u00a0 David McCandless, a journalist and self-described data detective, provides one perspective on the beauty of data visualization<\/a> in a TED talk.\u00a0 He describes infographics as a language that combines the visually appealing with the addition of concepts.\u00a0 He suggests that through the interpretation of a combination of relative data sets presented visually, perceptions and behaviors could be influenced.\u00a0 Companies such as Visual.ly<\/a> or Piktochart<\/a> allow users to explore uploaded infographics, add content, and connect with a community of designers, journalists, and developers.\u00a0 They have created templates for those that want to create infographics, but don\u2019t have the background in programming or graphic design.\u00a0 Something to consider is the quality of the datasets.\u00a0 Piktochart will recommend sources while Visual.ly encourages viewers to think critically about what the infographic means and what bias the source may be presenting.\u00a0 This could spark an entirely new blog post on the significance of information literacy\u2026<\/p>\n

Living in a fast-paced world, we are flooded with incoming data on a daily basis.\u00a0 We have to find ways to consciously and subconsciously sort through what is relevant or interesting to us.\u00a0 This gets me thinking about the attractiveness of visual design and how we can each pick out different patterns from quantitative and qualitative data to tell different stories.\u00a0 Connecting this to free choice learning, if datasets were available for visitors to manipulate on a touch screen or through a different format at the Visitor Center, how would they be interpreted?\u00a0 What stories, infographics, or statements would people create from data provided by oceanographic expeditions or citizen science?\u00a0 How might they share their creations with others and does this generate discussion?\u00a0 Could this promote learning?<\/a>\u00a0 As time progresses, we will only increase in the amount of data that we generate.\u00a0 What we do with all this data and how we share it will continue to evolve as the tools and technologies change too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I continue to explore the field of science communication, I have been thinking about HOW this information is communicated and what tools we use.\u00a0 As new technology becomes available, we have the opportunity to use different methods and promote our message with a wider audience.\u00a0 In my last post on Sharing Science through Social… Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5252,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[98372,5614],"tags":[177942,177943,135680,88901],"class_list":["post-1689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-graphic-design","category-science-communication","tag-data-visualization","tag-infographic","tag-science-information","tag-storytelling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/freechoicelab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/freechoicelab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/freechoicelab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/freechoicelab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5252"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/freechoicelab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1689"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/freechoicelab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1691,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/freechoicelab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1689\/revisions\/1691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/freechoicelab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/freechoicelab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/freechoicelab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}