Everybody hates data, especially the one in form of numbers. Nobody seems to know why. It is one of those things that most people spend their time not pondering about. But that’s allowed, if you dislike it then why spend time thinking about it. Here is the weird thing – I love my numbers and consequently I ended up wondering about why others don’t. Initially I thought whats not to love about numbers and data? They have the power to say so much with so little. They are universal, they allow you to compare anything with everything else. It is a language that has no geographic boundaries, you may argue that this is true for language as well but to that I say numbers have no cultural boundaries either. They are freedom in its truest sense. But every time Ive had this conversation in a bar or a restaurant Ive had to finish my drinks all by myself. This is because im not much of a storyteller and Im trying to advertise the best story teller of all times – Numbers within data.
Numbers in form of any data tell us a complete story sometimes where there may seem to be none. Unlike most storytelling where the storyteller practices the art, with data the listener is the one that needs to be a master of the art. The listener or the interpreter has the power to unlock the story, the story is as interesting as he cares to make it seem or even as detailed as he or she can possibly see. The limitations are not imposed upon by the storyteller but rather by the skill of the listener. This idea may seem very abstract and I acknowledge that there is a chance Im not making much sense – but like I said earlier, im not the best story teller.
This idea of data telling stories is something that Jer Thorp talked about during his TED talk in Vancouver. He believes that numbers are a treasure grove of stories and he makes a compelling case about it mostly because unlike me he is a better storyteller. He indirectly claims that it is our [people like him and me] responsibility to perform the role of a translator. To take data and to provide it with context so the story becomes visible to everyone and the best way to be doing this is by making stories have elements that kids love in their storybooks – visuals. We need to take data and give it human form and context. It is the absence of this context that can be blamed for the hatred towards numbers, we change this and the rest will take care of itself. How can visualizing data change our general acceptance of them? You may ask, well it is human nature to contextualize and visualize information to be able to comprehend and understand it. Just 1 doesn’t make much sense to anyone but 1 chocolate does simple because we can picture one chocolate but not an arbitrary number same applies to data. Basically I just humanized the number 1.
Here is a useful infographic that argues for visualizing data, textual and numerical alike –
