Visualizing data without perpetuating inequality, with Eli Holder
Channel: Australian Evaluation Society
Date: 2023-06-21

How do we visualize inequality without promoting it? How can we communicate social outcomes in ways that inspire positive change?

When data represents groups of people, it’s inescapably interpreted through the audience’s prior knowledge, assumptions, biases and stereotypes about the groups being visualized. This makes visualizing social data unique from other topics. It also means that common visualization techniques that are safe in other domains can be harmful when visualizing data about people from minoritized communities.

Eli's recent peer-reviewed study shows how certain popular data visualizations, meant to raise awareness of social disparities, may actually backfire and reinforce them, by encouraging harmful stereotypes about the people being visualized. This session builds on Eli's research to help practitioners apply his findings and produce more equitable social-data visualizations. After the session, attendees should be able to:
(1) Identify and articulate the hidden biases pervasive in charts and graphs covering social outcome disparities.
(2) Develop intuition for the surprising ways that social psychology can influence audiences’ perceptions of information.
(3) Learn alternative design approaches to effectively present equity-focused dataviz in ways that create awareness and inspire change, while mitigating harmful stereotypes about the people being visualized.

Eli Holder is a data designer, researcher, and founder of 3iap, a data visualization design practice. 3iap (3 is a pattern) specializes in psychologically effective information design, approachable analytics, and developing human-centered data products. 

Eli's research and writing focus on the intersection of social psychology and visualization design, looking at ways that data can both reflect and influence people's attitudes, beliefs, emotions, and behaviors (e.g., how visualizing social inequality can reinforce inequality). Eli is a former startup founder (Unblab, acquired by AOL, Notch.me, Nodd) and product leader (Noom, Chartbeat, PwC, StreetLinx). He graduated with a B.S. in computer science from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, where he studied board game AI and built 3D-visualizations for microscopes.

This special event was organised by the Multicultural Evaluation Special Interest Group (MESIG) of the Australian Evaluation Society.