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Outline of Conversation
Our Discussion Today
Purpose: Focus on the conceptual language of data viz.
Not a deep dive into the technical tools for doing dataviz.
Whatever tool you are using (Paper and Pencil, Markers on Whiteboard, Excel, Google Sheets, R), what are some conceptual considerations in making a data visualization?
Considerations for being part of a team conversation about visualizing data.
More specific technical resources at end.
Our Data
The data that we are using come from the World Development Indicators (WDI) which are country level statistical information from around the world, collected by the World Bank.
Basic Considerations
The Nature of Your Variables Determines the Nature of Your DataViz
Deciding upon the right data visualization to represent your data can be a daunting process.
I believe that a starting point for this thinking is some basic statistical thinking about the type of variables that you have.
At the broadest level, variables may be conceptualized as categorical variables, or continuous variables.
Variable Types
categorical variables represent unordered categories like neighborhood, or religious affiliation, or place of residence.
continuous variables represent a continuous scale like a mental health scale, or a measure of life expectancy.
Cleveland, William S, and Robert McGill. 1985. “Graphical Perception and Graphical Methods for Analyzing Scientific Data.”Science 229 (4716): 828–33. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1695272.
