Session 10 Finding the Story in Data
Session Description
Urban planners tell stylized stories that are backed up with data. While there are many stories which we can tell, at their best, these stories are evocative, compelling, and relatable. In this lab, you are going to be challenged to find the story present within a limited amount of data, and you will leverage that information to craft a compelling story.
Session Goals
- Become comfortable with applying principles of effective storytelling to data.
- Continue to build data analysis skills through applied storytelling practice
Before Class
Please download the lab files
During Class
Planners typically have the agency to select and draw upon numerous available indicators to selectively craft a story about their place. In today’s exercise, we are going to constrain the indicators available to you to push you to think critically and creatively about where stories might lie, and how you can use data analysis techniques to tease out those stories.
- Indicator Selection - at the beginning of this lab, we will randomly select four variables from our neighborhood indicator dataset from which you will craft your story. You will not be able to use other indicators aside from those selected.
- Univariate Description - start off by performing some univariate analysis, description, and visualization of the selected variables. Are there any obvious links that emerge from these univariate measures that merit further exploration?
- Bivariate description - now use bivariate description to explore the relationships between the selected indicators? What stories are emerging now. Develop one key visualization that you think tells an important story. Identify at least one external source for your place that backs up (or confounds) your interpretation of this description.
- Comparison - how do the neighborhood-level values for your indicators compare to the distribution for the city and its region? What questions does this raise?
- Refine the story - now that you have some analysis done as well as some reflections upon your interpretation, you may consider adding one additional indicator of your choice (either from those present in our lab dataset or that you acquire separately). Write a 2-page memorandum that integrates your analysis and writing to tell a short story based upon the four indicators.
- Reflect - what challenges did you face in developing a story with limited information? Without the indicator constraints present, how might you further expand or refine the story which you have told?
During the last 10 minutes of class, we’ll reserve time to talk in pairs about the direction your analysis is going and about your story’s design choices.