Storytelling Through Data Visualisation

After attending multiple talks from Pole Star Digital, The Candidate has become extremely invested in the works of their analytics team, so we contacted Lewis Carroll to find out more!

Lewis is a specialist in data visualisation, creative insight and information storytelling at Pole Star Digital. He spoke to us about the data behind the stories of two of the most eye-opening topics in the media over recent years.

In 2018, Pole Star Digital entered a competition hosted by the HM Land Registry who challenged the Measure Camp community to come up with the most exciting use of readily available data. In order to stay close to their roots, Lewis and Pole Star Digital decided to focus on the homelessness crisis which is currently taking place in our city. The data outlines that, although Manchester is a place that is filled with prosperity, rapid expansion and development, this is causing deeper issues such as homelessness to be overlooked and ignored by many.

So, you may be wondering what does this have to do with analytics…

Lewis believes that for people to be able to resonate with any story, people need to be able to visualise the data behind the story. The aim of this study was to create a compelling story through the use of data to engage and inspire people to take action.

What were the main research findings?

Since 2012, Manchester has seen a 348% increase in rough sleepers whilst social housing has decreased by over 11,000 homes.
Mancunians are earning on average £130 less than what they were in 2016, whilst the rest of England enjoy an average increase of £580.
1/3 of all homelessness is due to housing benefits cuts.
One British family with children is becoming homeless every 15 minutes.
10,000 social houses moved to the private sector.

Lewis represented these findings in the form of visually appealing graphs and diagrams, to represent the hard-hitting figures to his audience in a clear and informative way. All of a sudden, the story of the homeless crisis is littered with unsparing facts which make the problem that bit more real and relatable to the ordinary, unaffected person.

At Numberwang #2, hosted by User Conversion, Lewis decided to further expand on his data visualisation phenomenon by using data software IBM Watson to capture language used around attitudes towards the refugee crisis.

The talk focused on one particular piece of data, which became apparent in September 2015, representing the turning point in changing attitudes towards refugees. The image of a small Syrian boy losing his life in an attempt to find safety in Europe is what represented the spike displayed below.

This proves that data, whether it be in the form of text, imagery or visuals, plays a fundamental role in the changing of people’s attitudes towards a story, and has the potential to transform extremely hostile attitudes into strong feelings of empathy.

They used IBM Watson software to generate keyword results around refugees both pre and post-September 2015, and the difference is astounding…

IBM Watson results from pre-September 2015:

IBM Watson results from post-September 2015:

So, what does Lewis believe makes a strong data visualisation story?

“To create a compelling data story, it is important to leverage creative ideas, with the right format and an elegant structure, supported by meaningful context and explanations with text, imagery and colour.”

Points to take away…

Data is built into the foundations of every story, in every aspect of life.
Data visualisation has astounding effects on people’s attitudes.
Implementing data visualisation into your analytics business model may help drive ideas forward.
Data visualisation is an excellent way of effectively expressing data to audiences with less analytical knowledge.

Thank you to Lewis and Pole Star Digital for sharing their data stories with us, we look forward to hearing what is in store next.

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