User Needs
Alan Smith OBE
ONS Data Visualisation Centre, United Kingdom
@theboysmithy
First, a little look at big data
12 billion
The Big Data challenge...
Back to user needs...
User needs are not new
Societal challenges
Numeracy and statistical literacy
• “I phoned Camelot and they fobbed me
off with some story that -6 is higher, not
lower, than -8, but I’m not having it”
Tina Farrel, 23, Manchester
Numbers about people not liking numbers
• In England, there is a ‘Skills for Life’ Survey, measuring levels of numeracy,
literacy and IT skills in the working age population
• In 2003,
46.9%
of working age adults in England lacked Level 1
numeracy skills.
• In 2011,
49.1%
numeracy skills.
of working age adults in England lacked Level 1
The Data Mountains
• The global data supply reached 2.8 zettabytes (ZB) in 2012 (IDC Digital
Universe study)
• 90% of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years
alone (IBM)
• From now until 2020, the digital universe will about double every two years
(IDC).
• From 2005 to 2020, the digital universe will grow by a factor of 300, from
130 exabytes to 40,000 exabytes, or 40 trillion gigabytes (more than 5,200
gigabytes for every man, woman, and child in 2020)(IDC).
To engage, content needs to be engaging
Learning to see how
people see
Above All, Users Need Context
QuickTime™ and a
GIF decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Perceptual Tuning
what can you see?
Perceptual Tuning
what can you see?
Impact on Policy
Decisions?
how does official data
inform the debate?
Change over time
job done?
A statistical role
to focus presentation
on what matters
Add context
use other data appropriately
Appropriate narrative
...makes a clear message
Compare and contrast the
differing messages
Another example
A perfect graph?
anything wrong?
the remaining distance
to equality
White space is important!
the story can be in the
‘no data’ space
the remaining distance
to female domination
Understand the
implications
scaling is a statistical control
Function & Aesthetics
A cautionary story
• I conducted a survey which asked respondents just one closed question:
•Q. Are you happy with the customer service you received today?
•A. YES/NO
• RESULTS:
•85% said YES
•15% said NO
Survey Results:
85% YES
15% NO
TOTAL pixels: 76,523
pixels ‘NO’: 11,579
=15%
TOTAL pixels: 61,621
pixels ‘NO’: 7,557
=12%
TOTAL pixels: 29,002
pixels ‘NO’: 2,154
=7%
Function & Aesthetics
Bateman et al
• “...people‘s accuracy in describing the
embellished charts was no worse than
for plain charts, and that their recall
after a two-to-three-week gap was
significantly better.”
“Although we are cautious about
recommending that all charts be
produced in this style, our results
question some of the premises of the
minimalist approach to chart design.
Thank you
Alan Smith OBE
ONS Data Visualisation Centre, United Kingdom
@theboysmithy