The document discusses developing audience personas to help design visualizations that are empathetic. It recommends identifying key stakeholder groups and personas within each group by considering their motivations, priorities, knowledge level, and other human attributes rather than just job titles. An example is provided of mapping personas like "Rachel the Technocrat" and "Pascal the Politician" based on dimensions such as how they are motivated and how they act. The goal of personas is to focus on a manageable set of audience profiles to guide visualization design rather than attempting to account for thousands of individuals.

1. Visualizations with Empathy:
Developing Audience Personas
Amanda Makulec
John Snow Inc.
Visual Analytics Advisor

2. How we often
think of our
stakeholders.
Washington D.C.:
Networking Capital
of America

3. Think beyond job
titles and affiliations.

4. Each persona represents a significant
portion of people in the real world
and enables the designer to focus on a
manageable and memorable cast of
characters, instead of focusing on
thousands of individuals.”
persona, n.
“A persona is depicted as a specific
person but is not a real individual;
rather, it is synthesized from observations
of many people.
From:
https://www.smashingmagazine.com/201
4/08/a-closer-look-at-personas-part-1/

5. Credit to ThinkPlace Foundation, from the Innovations for Maternal, Newborn & Child
Health Initiative’s Care Community Hub

6. empathy

8. Co-facilitated persona
development in
six countries
with evaluators, program
teams, and government staff

9. steps to develop simple
data viz audience
personas

10. 1. Pick your
stakeholder groups

11. 2. Identify key
personas within a
stakeholder group

12. motivators

13. roadblocks &
pain points

14. priorities

15. analytic
literacy

16. Informed about your issue
Awareness of
your issue
Unaware and not
familiar with your issue
Aware of your issue but
mostly uninformed
Aware of your issue but
inaccurately informed
Very aware &
accurately
informed
knowledge
of your issue

17. values
Credit to ThinkPlace Foundation

18. a tool for
dialogue

19. sample template

20. Ministry of Health
Rachel
The Technocrat
Pascal
The Politician
for example
segmented to

21. Wants
stories
Wants
numbers
Motivated
by passion
Motivated
by money
Act based
on feelings
Act based
on data
Resilient
problem solver
Frustrated
bureaucrat
Champion for
your issue
Oppose your
issue
mapping by
dimension

22. Wants
stories
Wants
numbers
Motivated
by passion
Motivated
by money
Act based
on feelings
Act based
on data
Resilient
problem solver
Frustrated
bureaucrat
Champion for
your issue
No knowledge
of your issue
mapping by
dimension
Rachel
the Technocrat
Pascal
the Politician

23. find your persona

24. Not just
job titles
stakeholder groups
organization names
Focus on the human side of
your data viz audience.

25. rad resources
HCD Facilitation Tools
dschool.stanford.edu/
use-our-methods
Understanding Audiences
smartchart.org

26. Follow
@JSIhealth
Amanda Makulec
amanda_makulec@jsi.com
@abmakulec