Data Viz to the Rescue!
Adding Emotion to the Data
What if I were to tell you that Hurricane Florence poured over North Carolina in September 2018 as much as the average rainfall for an entire year in Seattle…
Are you able to imagine the devastation?
What if I were to show you that seeing a photo of one flooded road would have a similar visual effect to one visualization of 365 flooded roads…
Would your experience of this natural disaster become more comprehensible?
In this article you will ‘get the picture’ of how combining the data visualization of a data set paired with a real-world photo of one data point, can add emotion to the data with the goal of propelling action.
Data Viz to the Rescue!
Right before Hurricane Florence, local and state officials urged over 1.25 million Americans to leave their homes! I happened to know a few of them.
The main offices of ODTUG, a technical not-for-profit organization that I volunteer for, are located in Wilmington, North Carolina. During Hurricane Florence, over 10 people from that location evacuated and were unable to return home due to hundreds of flooded roads across the state. One of the main problems they needed help with was accurate navigation, which couldn’t be provided within the first few days by the most popular navigation apps.
ODTUG volunteers used their technical skills for good to create a Road Closure Navigation App that would display the most up to date road closures with data updated directly from the North Carolina Department of Transportation website, along with open gas stations data from GasBuddy. The road closure data set was visualized and shared with the broader tech volunteer community with the goal of emotionally engaging other members across the world in joining efforts to build the navigation app.
One Flooded Road out of …
When I initially created the following Parallel Coordinates visualization, I asked myself: “What message am I trying to convey? The data viz looks like a mess!! This is going to confuse everyone if they don’t see it the way I picture it in my head…”
By adding the photo of one flooded road next to the data visualization of the whole data set, every time you’d see the side by side visualization, you’d be most likely taken aback at the thought of imagining hundreds of other roads in a similar situation.
This is an example of how a stand-alone real-world representation of one data point can be showcased side by side with the visualization of hundreds of data points to convey a more complete emotional experience. It is then, that the audience will get the full picture. It is after that moment, when your audience will be propelled to act. In this specific case, the action might have been as simple as helping out to build the navigation app, donating to hurricane relief funds, volunteering to aid the impacted communities, join a climate action local group etc.
After all, what is the point of data visualization if not to convey a message in an easy to understand and direct way to a general public, with the goal of influencing their opinions and their actions?!
One Flooded Neighborhood out of …
After finally getting back home, some of my friends returned to find their houses completely flooded and damaged. Actually, the total damages caused by Hurricane Florence are estimated to be between $17 billion to 22 billion.
In the following Tag Cloud visualization, you can see on the right the North Carolina counties most impacted by flooded roads (the bigger the tag cloud word, the bigger the impact), while on the left you’ll see an aerial photo of a flooded neighborhood of one of the most impacted counties.
As a stand-alone visualization, you would be given the dry facts. By mirroring the word tag representing a county, to the equally sized photo of one flooded house where the houses themselves look like data points out of a real-world tag cloud, you would be able to translate those facts into an emotional reaction followed by a call to action.
Yet another example of how a stand-alone real-world representation of one data point can be showcased side by side with the visualization of hundreds of data points to convey a more complete emotional experience, with the end goal of propelling action.
“Graphical excellence is that which gives to the viewer the greatest number of ideas in the shortest time with the least ink in the smallest space.” — Edward R. Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
In this case, pairing a real-world photo of one data point that visually aligns with the design of the visualization of the whole data set, would enable us to create more concise, direct, emotional and actionable visual storytelling.
One Hurricane out of …
The following Radar Bar visualization displays on the left all North Carolina’s roads flooded after Hurricane Florence, while on the right you’ll see a photo of Hurricane Florence from space.
Both the visualization and the spatial hurricane photo have a similar circular shape, with the visualization’s bars visually aligning with the hurricane’s rotating arms. On the right, you see a photo of the cause of this natural disaster: the hurricane. On the left, you see a visualization of the impact of this natural disaster: the hundreds of flooded roads.
Seeing only the data visualization would leave you somehow emotionally dry when it comes to experiencing a fuller understanding of what happened in North Carolina on Sept. 2018, until you combine the following elements:
Data Visualization (the data set) + Real-world Photo (one data point) => Getting the Picture (adding emotion to propel action)
Unfortunately, Hurricane Florence was only one of many destructive storms of the past year. Shortly after Hurricane Florence, a month later, Michael hit the Carolinas.
“Hurricane Michael, which killed over 40 people, made landfall along the panhandle on Oct.10 as a Category 4 hurricane. At the time of the landfall, it was packing winds of 155 mph, just 2 mph shy of Category 5 status, AccuWeather said. That made it the strongest storm to ever hit the Florida Panhandle.” - Doyle Rice, USA TODAY
“Nearly 400,000 people were without power by Thursday afternoon, Governor Cooper said, and the number of roads closed by Matthew — nearly 120, most of them in the west — had overtaken the number of roads still closed by Florence.” — Chris Dixon and Campbell Robertson for The New York Times
As National Geographic points out in its article “2018 deadly hurricane season, visualized”, after such natural disasters strike, many communities across the world needed other people to act by helping with in-land rebuilt efforts and global donation campaigns. As data visualization enthusiasts, we can leverage our Data Viz superpowers to inspire others to act!
One Data Set out of …
Hurricanes are not the only type of natural disasters that are gaining global attention given their increasing occurrences in the past few years. When it comes to the melting of the arctic ice, we have raised our concerns with data for a long time, but somehow the data feels detached from an individual’s complete understanding of the dire climate change situation the world is currently facing.
In the following visualization you’ll see depicted in icy pale blue, the years where the ice surface area was higher. As you progress through the past two decades, the color changes to a darker ocean blue, representing the melting ice mass. That visual effect looks similar to what’s happening in reality as you can see in the two real-world photos at the top.
In a stand-alone visualization, you would see the facts. Paired with the contrasting photos of how the Arctic Ice has shrunk in time between two data points, you would most likely experience what you’re seeing with some added emotions. Once the data and the view of reality overwhelm your visual sense of understanding, you would hopefully be more prone to acting upon what you’re seeing.
Does climate change look very much real in data and in photos now? If so, among other climate actions you could take: it’s time to reduce consumption and embrace an environmentally sustainable lifestyle.
You are one of the 7+billion data points in the human population data set, and you have the power to influence the story of human kind!
One Photo is worth 1000 Words
One Visualization is worth 1000 Stories
Together they Add Emotion to the Data
Together they Propel Action
If you’re curious to learn the full story behind the creation of the Hurricane Florence data visualizations, check out this blog post: A #TechGivesBack Story: Hurricane Florence NCDOT Road Closure, GasBuddy Navigation App
