Data Presentation Quotes

Above all else show the data.

There is a rampant tendency in any industry where someone is trying to sell something with a bunch of data, where they cherry pick a little bit... bias a little bit. This becomes quite easy when there is an enormous amount of data to cherry pick from.

It's amazing how much data is out there. The question is how do we put it in a form that's usable?

I'm happy to provide that service. But that's the power of it. A good infographic that's been really worked on looks simple and easy, but it actually required a lot of processing.

What we have to do is put this in a coherent form for them at the end of the day, and on the big events, give them the kind of context that they deserve.

Some of the commercial work I do is helping people to improve their presentations and add some design thinking. There are so many amazing things in science, and such great data, which can often be locked away. It's in the minds of these amazing practitioners, who can't necessarily express what they want in a visual way.

Design has a powerful impact on the viewer. It has authority, and data also has the same air of authenticity and detail. It can be hard to argue with a graph, and it's hard to argue with data. So to combine data with a strong visual impact creates a powerful message.

If the statistics are boring, you've got the wrong numbers.

You can shape statistics to make them look however you want them to.

My radio show, I'd show up, I'd read the data, and I would have sound bites and stuff like that.

A journalist and an information architect face exactly the same problem - how to give shape to the pile of information in front of you in a way that will make it easy and natural for people to comprehend. I can't imagine any better preparation for the work I do now.

The World Bank is the monopoly provider of poverty data and, partly due to a leadership change there, the World Bank's reporting has been heavily on the rosy side since about 2000. The Bank's cultivation of an upbeat picture affords a very interesting lesson in statistics and how you can, depending on which numbers you present and how you present them, create a more positive or more negative impression of the evolution of poverty.

For every one of our failures, we had spreadsheets that looked awesome

Information is expanding daily. How to get it out visually is important.

Put simply, if an interface is poorly designed, I will not see the data I looked for, even if it is right there on the page.

I never really understood the idea that nonfiction ought to be this dispensary of data that we have at the moment. Also, roughly around the time we were doing this fact-checking. And I never really understood why people think what nonfiction's job is to give them information as opposed to something else.

The statistics might have a Eurosceptic cast, but they are not exactly a fun read. Few of us want to wade through ONS graphs or European Commission tables.

There is a reasonable concern that posting raw data can be misleading for those who are not trained in its use and who do not have the broader perspective within which to place a particular piece of data that is raw.

anyone can understand anything. You just have to know how to present your information.

The best mentors present their opinions simply as data and not as direction.

Prolonged statistics are a lethal dose, which if it does not kill will certainly dispel your audience.

Just providing information about how bad things are, or the statistics and data on incarceration by themselves, does lead to more depression and resignation and is not empowering. The information has to be presented in a way that's linked to the piece about encouraging students to think critically and creatively about how they might respond to injustice, and how young people have responded to injustice in the past.

Even more important than statistics is then having the staff that can take the data and ensure it's presented in a way that improves individuals and teams.

Except in expert hands, stats can get in the way of story; an array of data that might better be presented in a table instead clogs up sentences.