Charts: An Overlooked Source of Humor
An interview with the creators of Charty Party, the data visualization card game, on having fun with charts, data literacy and more
Data visualization is a great way to celebrate our favorite pieces of art as well as reveal connections and ideas that were previously invisible. More importantly, it’s a fun way to connect things we love — visualizing data and kicking up our feet for a movie night. All week, Nightingale is exploring the intersections between data visualization and all kinds of entertainment.
We’ve already argued that data visualization has arrived in the mainstream and is reaching maturity as a field. But perhaps there’s no better measure of this progress than seeing a game dedicated to data viz arrive on the scene. As part of our “Nightingale and Chill” Week coverage, I had the pleasure to interview Evan Katz, one half of the team behind Charty Party, the “adult card game of absurdly funny charts, graphs and data visualization!” Along with co-creator Josh Roberts, Evan has always found “charts to be an overlooked source of humor,” and set out to create a game that would bring these laughs to a wider audience.
We talked about creating a card game “voice,” how they feel data literacy has changed in recent times, and the newest developments from the Charty Party team.
AB: Can you tell us a bit about your team — how did the two of you meet, what are your backgrounds, etc.
EK: Josh and I both have the same day job, working as business consultants at a boutique consulting firm in Memphis, Tennessee. Josh has previously worked in advertising, and I worked on a few startup ventures prior.
AB: Where did the idea for Charty Party come from, and how did the game as we know it now make its way into the world?
EK: We’ve always found charts to be an overlooked source of humor, and the original idea for Charty Party sprung from a conversation about, “Is there something where your age correlates directly with how much you’d pay for it?” (We decided it’s a steak.) We started playtesting the game on sticky notes, and gradually grew it up from there into the game it is today with a lot of testing help from friends.
AB: The humor of the cards all seem to share a certain DNA. Does that spring from one of you in particular, or did you have to strategize making them feel cohesive?
EK: That’s funny you notice that! We usually write the cards independently, and Josh’s humor tends to be a bit darker while mine leads more toward the absurd. But, we always revise together, and we’ve taken a lot of care to have the tone of the game be more clever than just plain offensive. With our new edition, Charty Party: All Ages, we’ve had to work especially hard to write cards that are both school appropriate but still legitimately funny, which was challenging. But, we’re really happy with how that new version’s come out.
AB: I own a copy of the game, and have described it to friends as “a riff on Apples to Apples for data nerds.” Did you have a target audience in mind when you created the game?
EK: You about nailed it! We didn’t think, “How can we make a game for data nerds?” right off the bat, but we quickly realized that audience, plus teachers and just general quirky folks, were a great match for the game.
AB: How do you view familiarity with data viz and data literacy in the population at large, and how did that fit into your design of the game?
EK: Playing the game with new groups is always interesting — some people get it immediately, and others take a bit to warm up to reading the charts. But, we encourage never faulting anyone for not having a background in understanding charts, no matter their age — it’s not a skill you’re born with! But, we can almost guarantee that if you spend a night playing Charty Party, you’ll come away with a super solid, intuitive understanding of graphs. We didn’t intend for Charty Party to be a learning tool, but something about the lack of scary numbers and goofy concepts helps people say, “Oh — this stuff isn’t really that complicated.”
AB: Do you feel like data literacy has changed at all since COVID times began?
EK: Viewing and understanding charts has gained a whole new level of relevancy in 2020, so there’s certainly more reasons than ever to be able to intuitively understand a chart. Also, it’s equally important to be able understand how charts can be made to show data in a misleading way. We’ve actually included some “teacher lesson notes” in the new All Ages Version, and intentionally creating misleading charts in order to understand how data manipulation works is one of the activities!
AB: Speaking of the All Ages version (which released last month), for each Kickstarter donation you’ve been distributing cases of the game to schools in need — which is awesome! Tell us a bit more about both the new version and the donation initiative.
EK: We’re super excited about the All Ages version, which has successfully completed its Kickstarter thanks to 1,900+ supporters, many of them teachers. The new game is a standalone game that’s totally school appropriate (but still hilarious, even for adults!) and also works as an expansion pack to the original version. We donated 160 games to math departments around the country during the Kickstarter campaign, many of them being in lower income areas, and we plan to continue making school donations an on-going part of Charty Party: All Ages Edition even after the game is available at retail.
AB: Any plans for other versions of Charty Party or other data-related games that you can share with us??
EK: We’ve got lots of ideas (none ready to share yet!) and we’ll definitely continue releasing games. It’s not data related, but it’s equally quirky and funny — our other game, Puns of Anarchy, just became available for online retail. If you love wordplay, give it a look!
