Making Data Visualization Great at The World Bank

Tariq Khokhar Data Scientist World Bank Data Group tkhokhar@worldbank.org @tkb

Aguascalientes, December 4th, 2013

10 Things I Think Help to Make Data Visualization Great

in Organizations

1

Open Data

More people will visualize your data

OUTSIDE your organization than

INSIDE it

Free: Legally+ Technically Open

Data Catalog (It’s a list…)

Bulk Downloads

APIs

Friendly, Multi-Lingual Interfaces

2

Metadata, Documentation

+Support

Great visualizations help understand

the data in context

Definitions + Sources

A Helpdesk

With a knowledge base

3

Partner with

storytellers (inside and outside)

Stories engage and inform

4

Develop Visual Literacy

Learning how to spot a bad chart is

the first step to making a good one

Hands-on Training

You try: what’s wrong with this?

What about this?

And this?

5

Smart use of web & mobile friendly datviz

tools

Build for speed and simplicity: use interactivity only if it adds something

Tableau Dashboards

Tableau Dashboards

Free Tools Like Datawrapper…

Google Public Data Explorer

JS Libraries like D3

In Multiple Languages…

Integrate with others…

6

Optimize for Social Media

Make your content shareable: let others do the dissemination

worldbank.tumblr.com

worldbank.tumblr.com

• > 25,000 followers in 10 months

• Collaboration with other media orgs

• People readily share

worldbank.tumblr.com

@worldbankdata

Enable Geeky Twitter People

Who also catch bugs…

And 1.1 Million Fans on FB

Who are young, and mostly in developing countries

7

Publish Data + Visualizations

Publishing data alongside ALL

visualizations is key for trust and

reproducibility

Like this.. (hyperlinks!)

Which opens up an XLS

8

Publish Source Code

Publishing source code for visualizations and

analyses is also key for trust and

reproducibility

GitHub Makes Life Easier

Experimenting with using Github for data version management

9

Simplify

10

Experiment and have fun

Thank You

Tariq Khokhar Data Scientist World Bank Data Group tkhokhar@worldbank.org @tkb

Aguascalientes, December 4th, 2013