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CS109 Data Science

Visual Communication
Hanspeter Pfister & Joe Blitzstein /
This Week
HW5 due Friday, Nov 15.You should have started!

Friday lab 10-11:30 am in MD G115

SVM, Neural Networks, and Hierarchical Clustering

Final Project Proposals due Monday, Nov 11

Teams, interesting questions and data

Project scope and outline

Death by PowerPoint
The Image of the

Prof. Calculus, Tintin Gyro Gearloose, Getafix (aka Miraculix), Heinz Doofenshmirtz,
Duck Tales Asterix & Obelix Phineas and Ferb
Effective Communication
Reasons to Communicate
1. Convey what you have learned in your project

Goal: Dont tell the audience what you did, tell the audience
the most important things they should know, but probably do

2. Get feedback from others to advance your project

Goal: Put smart people in the best position to help you.

Based on talk by Kayvon Fatahalian

The (more or less) Five Ws
Who is your audience?

What is the motivation behind your project?

What questions are you answering?

What is the context of your project?

Data, related work, etc.

Why should I care?

What are your major insights? Surprises? Impact?
Know Your Audience
Aim for your target audience to understand
everything you say (otherwise why are you saying it?)

This means you have to put yourself in your

audiences shoes

It is reasonable to target two audiences

The experts (e.g., instructors) that should understand

A broader audience (e.g., on the web) that might understand

all but the most technical 20%

Based on talk by Kayvon Fatahalian

Dont Make Me Think!
The audience does not want to burn mental effort about
things you know and can just tell them

Lead them by hand through the major steps of your story

Audience does want to spend their energy thinking about:

The context of your project

Implications of your approach and findings

Potential problems with what you did (did you consider all edge

Based on talk by Kayvon Fatahalian

David Jacopille
Tell the audience: Here is the right way to think
about the problem I am trying to solve.

Catch the audiences attention and frame the story

in the introduction

If done well, your solution will seem obvious given

this framing. And thats a good thing!

Based on talk by Kayvon Fatahalian

Dont Bury the Lead

Cole Nussbaumer
Dont Bury the Lead

Cole Nussbaumer
Make the audience aware that there is
something they didnt know they didnt know

Use surprise to grab the audiences attention

You might think you know this, but heres a

new angle on it

Curiosity happens when we feel a gap in our

Inputs, Outputs, and
Establish goals and assumptions early

Given these input data, we wish to answer these


We are working under the following constraints

Example: the data had these properties

Example: the analysis had to be easy to interpret

Example: our algorithm could only run on small data

Based on talk by Kayvon Fatahalian

The Curse of Knowledge makes it hard to
communicate with non-experts

Decision paralysis sets in when we have too

many choices

Concreteness focuses the brain (e.g., write

down as many white things as you can think of)
End on a Positive Note!
The future is bright!

Lots of new work to do, here are some ideas!

This is one part of something bigger!

Dont stress problems with the work. Its boring

and sort of a bummer for everyone involved.

Oh man, I guess they really havent done much. That
was incremental.

Based on talk by Kayvon Fatahalian


A designer know he has achieved perfection not

when there is nothing left to add, but when there is
nothing left to take away.

A. de Saint-Exupry
Less is More
KISS - Keep It Simple, Stupid!

Every word, sentence, and graph matters

Assess the value of why you are saying or

showing something

If you cant justify how it will help the listener,

take it out

Based on talk by Kayvon Fatahalian
Not Effective...

Sources: US Treasury and WHO reports

Much better...

Sources: US Treasury, WHO, Nature

Visual Zen
Visual Design
E. Segel
E. Segel
E. Segel
E. Segel
E. Segel
E. Segel
E. Segel
E. Segel
E. Segel
E. Segel
E. Segel
Visual Storytelling
New York Times
Visual Storytelling
E. Segel
E. Segel
7 Genres

E. Segel
E. Segel
The Martini Glass

Interactive Slideshow

Drill Down Story

Washington Post
Alberto Cairo
Connected Scatterplots
Time Magazine Redesign
New York Times
Alberto Cairo
M. Krzywinski & A. Cairo
Andrew Stanton, Pixar
Further Reading
Further Reading