Designing Creative Content: How visualising data helps us see

/ @VickeKaravanVicke Cheung
How Visualising Data Helps Us See
Designing
Creative Content

We create pieces of
content to earn attention
for our clients

Getting coverage requires either:
1. breaking news
2. new insight

We tend to focus on:
1. breaking news
2. new insight

New insight means
allowing people to see
something in a new way

This is where
visualising data comes in

Simplifying the complex
Visualising data provides insight by

concerthotels.com/100-years-of-rock

concerthotels.com/100-years-of-rock
shortlisted for_______________________________________
featured in ___________________...

Simplifying things makes it easier
to consume and draw insight

Putting things into context

We aren’t good at wrapping our
heads around big numbers
:(

On average, there are
60 million photos uploaded
to Instagram each day

Impressive stat,
but pretty meaningless by itself

photoworld.com/photos-on-the-web

Physical frames of reference
allow us to “see” the size of
Instagram in a new way

hereistoday.com
Monday 19, October

Give insight by putting
things into context

Fear not:
Putting things into context isn’t
about fancy animations

Simple static images can
do the job just as well
[more on this later…]

Revealing patterns

Data taken from Cabinet Office Wellbeing & Policy Report 2014

bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26671221
The BBC wrote an article about this

This was their insight
bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26671221

It’s hard to draw
insight from this

michaelpage.co.uk/minisite/salary-vs-happiness

Plotting the data and the curve
allowed us to identify outliers

The interest is in the outliers,
which were only identifiable
through visualisation

Another great example of
revealing patterns and clusters…

nytimes.com/interactive/2011/05/03/us/20110503-osama-response.html

Visualising the data
brought the hidden patterns
and relationships to light

You need to know where
you’re adding value

You just listened to Wikipedia!

Listen to Wikipedia
listen.hatnote.com

The value is not to
learn about Wikipedia

The value lies in the novelty of
the execution and experience

This is “Wow”
listen.hatnote.com

“Isn’t this just lovely?”

“Well, this is mesmerising”

shows you something you’ve
literally never seen before
Wow

Data is easy to come by,
but insight is not

priceonomics.com/the-hipster-music-index

It shares insight by
applying a new meaning
to the two sets of data

huffingtonpost.com/benjamin-moore/overrated-underrated-movies_b_5319488.html

overrated

underrated

It’s about what they mean,
not how they look

shows you something
in a new light
Aha

“Wow” and “Aha” are
not often as clear-cut

The Wow & Aha Spectrum
Wow Aha

Listen to Wikipedia
Wow Aha

Hipster Music IndexListen to Wikipedia
Wow Aha

100 Years of Rock
Listen to Wikipedia Hipster Music Index
Wow Aha

If you printed all the
Instagram photos…
100 Years of Rock
...

100 Years of Rock
Instagram photos…
Happiness vs.
Salary
Th...

Regardless of what value
you choose to offer

Don’t make your audience
work for it

findproperly.co.uk/tube-map.php

Don’t make your
audience work!

thrillist.com/lifestyle/london/london-underground-rent-map
Thrillist made their own version

It succeeded where
the other failed

Reward
doesn’t match
the effort
required

Tried to do
too much:
option-
overload

Allows for quick
scanning and
locating
data points
of interest

Reward
surpasses
effort required

It can be tempting to try to
do too much at once

What’s the one thing
you want to show?

V1.
Not showing the
one thing we want it to

Better, but
could still be improved

Ask yourself:
What’s the one thing I
want to show?

And follow up with:
Am I really showing this?

Sometimes you need to
show people how to see it

“The annotation layer is the
most important thing we do…
otherwise it’s a case of here
it is, you go figure it out”
Amanda...

Annotation layer
=
labels, introductions,
explanatory text, captions

Surely the visualisation
itself is more important
than the annotations
anonymous sceptic

Indecipherable without annotations

nytimes.com/interactive/2014/06/05/upshot/how-the-recession-reshaped-the-economy-in-255-charts.html?_r=0

Annotations can help you
deliver insight without making
your audience work for it

The value in visual content is in
helping people see things they
couldn’t previously see by…

Know where you’re adding value
100 Years of Rock
Instagram ...

Don’t make your
audience do the work
That’s your job!
But above all else…

Vicke Cheung, Distilled
Thank you!
vicke.cheung@distilled.net / @VickeKaravan

Designing Creative Content: How visualising data helps us see