Data Literacy is the Future for Data Visualization
By: Allen Hillery
Tags: Data Visualization, Government, Data Science, Storytelling

But there’s another story, and I won’t share the name of the user or even really the story, because it’s theirs, not mine. A very talented Tableau Public author reached out to me and described their childhood of extreme poverty, and their tenacity to rise above it using education and data literacy and leveraging everything they could just made me sit there and cry. Maybe one day that person will tell that story.

AH: From the time you started with Tableau until you left, what changes did you observe in the type of users, the stories being told, etc.

Tableau dashboard showing property rentals in Minsk.

BJ: Interesting question. The look and feel of what was being created changed more than anything else, I’d say. We were teaching each other new techniques, the software was evolving, and the overall dataviz space was undergoing a massive innovation wave. The movement jumped from primarily a US-based thing to a global thing fairly early in my time at Tableau, so I started seeing stories about property rentals in Minsk and changes in Congress in Peru. That never stopped. Over two-thirds of the views of Tableau Public came from outside the US and Canada, so it was the most international aspect of Tableau for some time.

Tableau dashboard author, Angel Hugo Pilares of Peru’s El Comercio shows the political party-line breakdown of the Peruvian senate. Angel uses a unique graphical representation of the actual layout of the senate chamber to bring his data to life.

AH: How fulfilling did you find it to watch someone go from novice to power user? How would you gauge user’s data literacy?

BJ: That was a lot of fun for me! I got hooked on it, actually. While I was working at Tableau, I was also teaching at the University of Washington’s Continuum College (I still am). And when you’re part of someone’s light bulb/eureka moment, there’s no going back. This is the main reason I left Tableau to do what I’m doing now at Data Literacy.

AH: Can you elaborate more on what motivated your move from Tableau to starting up Data Literacy, LLC?

BJ: Toward the end of my time at Tableau, I started to hear something over and over again. In so many conversations I had with people in corporations of all industries I started to hear about a massive education gap that exists in our era. “It’s great,” they would say, “that we can make a histogram with these awesome tools, and that amazing videos and tutorials exist to help us know how to do that. But the people in our company don’t know how to read one. They don’t know what it means.”

I lost track of how many times I had a variation of that conversation with someone. This capability gap lines up perfectly with my passion to help people get to that light bulb moment with data. I had always wanted to start and run a business, so I got to the point where I felt I had no choice. I couldn’t get to 80 or 85 and look back and wonder what would have happened. So now I’m finding out!

AH: What do you aspire to achieve with Data Literacy, LLC ?

BJ: I hope to help people speak the language of data. I want to build confidence in “data-phobic” people to better read and interpret charts and graphs and dashboards, and I want to help people develop useful data-working skills to tackle new challenges in their careers and in our societies.

AH: It sounds like you’re already doing that with a new book coming soon?

BJ: Yes! It’s titled Avoiding Data Pitfalls. It’s been in the works for awhile now but the good part of this journey is that I had the chance to make many more mistakes with data, and I was sure to incorporate warnings about those pitfalls into the book.

AH: The title alone piques my interest! How much of an impact are you expecting it to make on readers?

BJ: I wrote this book so that if time travel ever becomes a thing, I can go back in time and give it to an earlier version of me, along with some killer stock tips, and a stern note about a Peruvian restaurant in Vancouver to avoid. Obviously that hasn’t happened, and likely won’t but I’m hoping this book can be helpful for others embarking on the journey of data exploration, and even perhaps those already on the journey, who, like me have the bumps and bruises from the pitfalls to prove it.

AH: How important is data literacy in your opinion?

BJ: I believe advancing data literacy can be one of the most important contributions of our generation and the next few generations to come. It’s a relatively new language for us, if you look at the big picture.

Anatomically modern humans first appear in the fossil record around 195,000 years ago in Africa, but Alan Turing set out the idea of the modern computer in his seminal 1936 paper, only 80 years ago. That means we’ve been acclimating to the computing era for a grand total of 0.04 percent of human history. That’s a fraction of a day that occurs in the last 35 seconds, between 11:59:25 pm and 12:00:00 am.

So our generation has the critical job of the data infant for our species. Learning to crawl and then walk but figuring out how to put data to use. Building an immune system that defends us against costly data blunders. Who else is going to do this for our species?

AH: Where do you see the data viz space going? Do you see the same passion and hunger from users?

BJ: Yes, I really don’t see anything abating, to be honest. It has grown so much, and there are so many new voices and contributions being made every month that goes by. I hope to see three major changes take place in the coming years.

First, I hope to see more diversity of voices. Dataviz is part of STEM, and subject to the same biases and inertia, but I believe dataviz can take a leadership role in STEM and help point the way to a more inclusive world. I’m encouraged by conversations happening right now, and I’m optimistic that we can carve out a path forward.

Second, I’d like to see bridges formed across tool-based silos in dataviz. There’s no reason to be exclusive based on your tool of choice. There will always be subgroups that help each other learn specific skills, and that’s great, but there needs to be more connection at the higher level of concepts and ideas.

Third, dataviz is still very niche. It’s so much larger than it used to be before tools like Tableau and Power BI opened the doors for many others to join, but there are still so many people on the outside who don’t see data and visualization as something that they’re a part of.