The document outlines techniques for using data to tell stories, including asking questions, gathering data, finding stories within the data, and using various creative approaches to convey those stories. It discusses barriers organizations face in data storytelling and emphasizes hands-on approaches like building physical data sculptures. The agenda includes introducing criteria for evaluating data stories, demonstrating question-asking tools, reviewing types of stories that can be told, and having participants build sample data sculptures from provided datasets.

1. Hands-On Approaches to
Data Storytelling
Rahul Bhargava
rahulb@mit.edu
@rahulbot

2. Agenda
[30] Intro & Collective Critique
[25] Asking Good Questions
[25] Techniques You Can Use
[25] Build Some Data Sculptures
[5] Wrap-up

3. Intro & Collective Critique

4. The Problem
Organizations working for the social good don't feel
empowered to tell stories with their data.

5. Barriers
confidence technology process

7. Using Data
Improving Operations
Use data inside your organization to assess operational efficiency and
measure impact.
Spreading Your Message
Use data in your marketing and outreach materials to communicate the
impact of your work.
Bringing People Together
Use data to gather people from different sectors together and
strengthen partnerships.

8. Opportunity
● Meet people where they are
● Make working with data fun
● Respect the "secondary" goals

9. Critique
1. What datasets are used?
2. How are they shown?
3. What is the story?
4. Is it well told?
The Global State of Agriculture by Lemon.ly for USAID, 2011

10. Abelson’s MAGIC Criteria
• Magnitude - size of the claim
• Articulation - how precise is your claim
• Generality - is it valid in multiple contexts
• Interestingness - can this change beliefs in a way that
matters?
• Credibility - do you believe it?
Robert Abelson. 1995. Making Claims with Statistics. In Statistics as Principled
Argument. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1–16. (PDF)

11. A Process

12. A Process
Asking
questions
brainstorming,
hypothesis forming,
audience and goals
Gathering
data
scraping, collecting,
cleaning
Finding a
story
cleaning and analyzing
Telling
your story
picking a technique
Trying it
out
assessment

13. Asking Good Questions

14. Asking
questions
Gathering
data
Finding a
story
Telling
your story
Trying it
out

15. Asking Good Questions
wtfcsv.databasic.io
• 1 question to ask
• list of other datasets you'd need
• how you'd try to get those datasets

16. Gathering
data
Finding a
story
Telling
your story
Trying it
out
Asking
questions

17. Stories You Can Tell
• Changes over Time
• Interesting Factoids
• Surprising Connections
• Personal Experiences
• Revealing Comparisons

18. WARNING!
Matejka, J., & Fitzmaurice, G. (2017, May). Same stats, different graphs: Generating datasets with
varied appearance and identical statistics through simulated annealing. In Proceedings of the 2017
CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1290-1294). ACM.

19. Techniques You Can Use

20. Asking
questions
Gathering
data
Finding a
story
Telling
your story
Trying it
out

21. The Usual Inspirations
Tableau Software
Visual Explanations, Edward Tufte
Gun Deaths, Periscopic

22. A Richer Set of Inspirations
History Quilt, Elizabeth Peabody, 1856
Prudential Ribbons Experiment, 2014
Food security data on a cucumber, Rahul Bhargava, 2014
Black Cloud, WWF & Ogilvy, 2007

23. A Tool Belt of Techniques
• Personal Stories
• Traditional Charts
• Creative Charts
• Data Sculptures
•Traditional Maps
•Creative Maps
•Be The Data

24. Personal
Stories

25. Traditional Charts

26. Choose the Right Chart
Andrew Abela

27. Creative Charts
Data Mural created with Groundwork Somerville and Emily Bhargava, 2013
Bhargava, R., Kadouaki, R., Bhargava, E., Castro, G., & D'Ignazio, C.
(2016). Data Murals: Using the Arts to Build Data Literacy. The Journal of
Community Informatics, 12(3).

28. Data
Sculptures
Bhargava, R. & D’Ignazio, C. Data Sculptures as a
Playful and Low-Tech Introduction to Working with
Data. Published in the proceedings from the Pedagogy
& Physicalization workshop at Designing Interactive
Systems (DIS) Conference 2017.

29. Traditional
Maps

30. NPR Visuals Team

31. Creative
Maps
Julien Bousac

32. Be the Data Prudential Ribbon Experiment

33. Lets Build a Data Sculpture!
Use physical craft materials to tell a data story in 3D

34. Asking
questions
Gathering
data
Finding a
story
Telling
your story
Trying it
out

35. Data Handouts
Happiness in Somerville Ice Cream in the US The Cost of MIT

36. Make a Data Sculpture
• Make a group of 2 or 3
• Pick a data handout
• Build something to represent the data!
• Use stuff! no pens or drawing
• Be creative! no line charts or bar charts
• Think with your hands! just start having some fun

37. Wrap-Up

38. The Problem
Organizations working for the social good don't feel
empowered to tell stories with their data.

39. Barriers
confidence technology process

40. Resources
datatherapy.org
databasic.io
culture.databasic.io

41. Hands-On Approaches to
Data Storytelling
Rahul Bhargava
rahulb@mit.edu
@rahulbot