EH 315: Professional Writing and Data Visualization: Frames Explained

Data and its visualization can be manipulated to achieve a desired result. This means:

• There are layers of meaning to any data visualization.
• Visual cues such as font, color, and organization, can affect understanding and perceived validity.
• The form of the data’s input affects what can be done with the data at the creation stage.
• Bias can affect how data is interpreted.
• Data must be viewed in context.

Business Insider

Notice the random months, the y-axis starting at 150,000, and the fact that annual apprehensions have decreased substantially since 2018.

Do these numbers correspond to the line lengths?

Old Street Solutions

Content is culture- and community-based; therefore:

• Prior knowledge can be necessary to visualization interpretation.
• Visual cues can affect attitudes toward the data representation and interpretation
• Social information is explicitly or implicitly revealed in the way the visualization is presented.
• The meaning of content may drift when the content is experienced outside of the original creator’s frame.

Rigorous Themes

What are wickets? what is a death over? what is odis? what's an ave?

Data visualization is information, and information has monetary value, so:

• Financial success is determined by access to and an understanding of information.
• The way information is visualized, and the information, itself, may be presented to monetarily reward one social group over another.
• Information in the form of data is the foundation for automated decision making. Automated decision-making is the next wave of technology innovation, but the ability to build models that are meaningful is limited by an individual’s ability to understand the meaning of both a model and its output. A data visualization can be made to fit any model with enough manipulation.  

Mapping Inequality: Birmingham

Using this chart, what areas are considered "Best" and more likely to attract home buyers?

Data visualization tells a story.

• Visualization can reinforce previous knowledge or be used as a rhetorical device.
• Visualization is a form of multimodal rhetoric, combining visual, data, and information tools to produce a message.

Storytelling with data

Each  set of data relies on the data above it. Having the reasons next to the proposal means the reader doesn't have to hunt to find them.