A short workshop from MERL Tech 2016 on how we can think more purposefully about telling stories with our data and designing visualizations to bring those stories to life in global health and development.

1. A Pixar Twist on
Presenting Data
Amanda Makulec
with invaluable input from
Michelle Samplin-Salgado

2. Amanda Makulec, MPH
Visual Analytics Advisor
John Snow, Inc.

3. Introduction
Methods
Results
Discussion
Recommendations

5. We can do better.

7. take your
audience on
a journey

9. the Pixar story arc
Once upon a time there was ___.
Every day, ___.
One day ___.
Because of that, ___.
Because of that, ___.
Until finally ___.
From: http://www.pixartouchbook.com/blog/2011/5/15/pixar-story-rules-one-version.html

10. today’s design sprint

11. Task #1
Pick an idea
you want to
work with
for the next
hour.

12. Let’s talk about
the science
behind stories.

13. It starts in
your brain.

14. Stories 
Hormones

16. Who’s your audience?

17. Interests?

18. Motivations?

19. Action?

20. Task #2
Who will
you share
that idea
with?

21. Name your
audience
What kinds of stories would resonate?
What questions would they ask?
What action do you want them to take?

22. Let’s talk about
great stories.

23. What stories do
you remember?

24. Exposition
Rising Action
Climax
Falling Action
Denoument
Freitag’s Dramatic Arc

25. Themes from Great Stories

26. COMING OF AGE
You have arrived.
Shows experience and demonstrates strengths

27. CONSTANT EVOLUTION
You’re always changing and growing.
Shows adapatibility.

28. TRUE AS IT EVER WAS
You remain true to yourself and your core values.
Shows steadiness and helps to reinforce trust.

29. OVERCOME OBSTACLES
There were challenges but you came out ahead
Shows resilience

30. REBIRTH
You’ve grown, changed, reinvented yourself.
Shows new hope, direction, and promise.

31. THE QUEST
It’s been quite the journey.You’ve remained true to you.
Shows commitment and dedication.

32. the
characters

33. the point
of view

34. Image credit: David MacCandless, Knowledge is Beautiful
explicit
(implicit)
visualization
(art of design)
Structuring visual elements
information
(art of journalism)
structuring information

36. focus

37. Task #3
Map out your key
story points: data
stories,
characters, a
point of view
(if you like).

38. Designing your
visualizations

39. conceptual data driven
declarative
exploratory
idea illustration everyday data viz
idea generation visual discovery
Matrix credit: Harvard Business Review’s Good Charts

40. make data sticky

43. color

44. “ t h i n k i n g w i t h
y o u r l i z a r d
b r a i n ”
preattentive attributes

45. length

46. width

47. shape

48. size

49. enclosure

50. preattentive attributes
strategic chart selection

51. Paired ColumnColumn
Bar Paired Bar Stacked Bar
Stacked Column
Slope
compare categories

52. Histogram Box and Whiskers Confidence Interval
distribution

53. Scatterplot Bubble
relationship

54. Dot Plot
time series
0 20 40 60 80

55. why dots?
0
20
40
60
80
Facility
1
Facility
2
Facility
3
Facility
4
Facility
5
Facility
6
Facility
7
Facility
8
Year 1
Year 5
0 20 40 60 80
Facility 1
Facility 2
Facility 3
Facility 4
Facility 5
Facility 6
Facility 7
Facility 8

56. Pie Donut
part-to-whole

57. a cautionary tale

59. Image credit from:https://www.biostat.wisc.edu/~kbroman/topten_worstgraphs/bell_fig3.jpg

60. Image Source:
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2008/
03/16/magazine/16wwln-
lede.graphic.ready.html

61. Tree Map
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Icon Matrix
part-to-whole
better
839
294
145
50
Small Multiples Chart
Horizontal Stacked Bar

62. View & order a copy at http://policyviz.com/graphic-continuum/
chart type quick reference

63. three things
to improve every chart

64. 1: declutter

65. “Erase non-data-ink,
within reason.”

66. 8
14.9
11.7
38.9
19.2
16.6
20.4
26.2
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
Facility 1 Facility 2 Facility 3 Facility 4 Facility 5 Facility 6 Facility 7 Facility 8
Year 1
Year 1

67. 0
10
20
30
40
50
Facility 1 Facility 2 Facility 3 Facility 4 Facility 5 Facility 6 Facility 7 Facility 8

70. 2: color sparingly

71. 0
10
20
30
40
50
Facility 1 Facility 2 Facility 3 Facility 4 Facility 5 Facility 6 Facility 7 Facility 8

72. 0
10
20
30
40
50
Facility 1 Facility 2 Facility 3 Facility 4 Facility 5 Facility 6 Facility 7 Facility 8

73. Brand compliant =
Rainbow charts

74. be mindful

75. custom styles

76. 3: purposeful title

77. 0
10
20
30
40
50
Facility 1 Facility 2 Facility 3 Facility 4 Facility 5 Facility 6 Facility 7 Facility 8
Health Worker Data Use Assessment Score by Facility
Zambia, 2015

78. 0
10
20
30
40
50
Facility 1 Facility 2 Facility 3 Facility 4 Facility 5 Facility 6 Facility 7 Facility 8
Health workers at Facility 4 showed the highest
proficiency in using data for decisionmaking.

79. chart templates

80. Illustrate
your story.

81. Harness your inner child

82. timelines

88. use icons

89. icon matrix

90. pick your icon

92. cartoons

93. combine visuals
83%of nurses in our
program used the
mobile app

94. 57
49
51
45
48
1992 1997 1999 2005 2006
According to most recent data, stunting
remains a major challenge in India.
% children
under 5

95. for social share &
infographics

96. Task #4
Storyboard
with stickies

97. And consider…

98. Think like a
designer

99. Simple
LESS IS MORE
white space is nice

100. Strategic use of
color

101. no more than 2
fonts

102. You can vary the
SIZE
width
kear ning
to create visual interest and
hierarchy

103. images

104. for high res images…

105. slidedocs

106. favorite things
Graphic Continuum
Dot plots
Icon matrix
Canva
Piktochart
Noun Project
Pexels
Slidedocs

107. duarte.com // storycorps.org // skillshare.com
storytelling recs

108. Inspiration
Skill building
data viz recs

109. For more information about JSI’s
work in visual analytics and data use,
contact the JSI Center for Health
Information,Monitoring & Evaluation
CHIME@jsi.com
Follow
@jsihealth
Amanda Makulec
John Snow Inc.
amanda_makulec@jsi.com
@abmakulec