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 used

1. on academia
and
data visualization
A discourse…
Ben Jones
Sr. Mgr, Tableau Public
@DataRemixed
May 28, 2014

2. A Canadian from Los Angeles who started a
dataviz website
…and moved to Washington to join Tableau
About Ben

3. Free software to quickly create and
share interactive data graphics on the web

4. http://www.nhl.com/ice/careerstats.htm

6. Gathering
Structuring
Analyzing
Communicating
Tables, Spreadsheets, Lists Charts, Graphs, Maps
INFORMATION INSIGHT

7. http://dataremixed.com website stats, Aug 2011 – May 2014
Source | Google Analytics

8. why data visualization?
because visualization amplifies cognition…
first for you, then for your audience

9. question gathering
data
structuring
data
exploring
data
communicating
data
The Data Discovery Horse Track

15. Anscomb’s Quartet

19. data visualization isn’t new
it’s been going on for centuries now

20. Joseph Priestley, 1769

21. William Playfair, 1786

22. John Snow, 1854

23. Florence Nightingale, 1858

24. visualization is for academics
some of the most influential findings have been communicated visually

28. “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

29. UW: West, Bergstrom, Jacquet, Brooks, Aragon
http://www.eigenfactor.org/gender/#

30. Visualization can be both
c l e a r
AND
beautiful

34. Data should be visually appealing

35. Data should be easy to understand

39. but visualization isn’t a panacea
just because you visualize something, doesn’t mean it’s intelligible

40. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kühlschifffahrt

41. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pie_chart_of_US_population_by_state.png

42. http://flowingdata.com/2014/04/04/fox-news-bar-chart-gets-it-wrong/

43. http://phylonetworks.blogspot.com/2012/03/biological-versus-phylogenetic-networks.html
Protein interaction network

46. and hey, visualization can be fun
just because you visualize something, doesn’t mean it’s intelligible

47. What does
this remind
you of?

48. Via Christopher Ingraham
Twitter: @_cingraham

51. Oh, and you can only
use exploded pies
when telling jokes…

52. but it can also be heavy-hitting
some facts about our world are very grave

54. visualization is an opportunity for
academic research
getting your ideas out there, making them stick

58. 3 Classic Problems:
The Technical Problem
The Semantic Problem
The Effectiveness Problem
C. Shannon W. Weaver

64. UW: West, Bergstrom, Jacquet, Brooks, Aragon
http://www.eigenfactor.org/gender/#

65. 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?