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Deconstructing Data: The Modular Information Design Handbook with Nicole
812 Plays6 months ago
Nicole Lachenmeier and Darjan Hil’s new book, Visualizing Complexity: Modular Information Design Handbook, focuses on deconstructing data encodings into fundamental elements to create effective visualizations. They take an exciting and hands-on approach to data visualization design for their own work and how they teach design to others. In this week’s episode of the podcast, our conversation highlights Nicole and Darjan’s journey in data design and how they stress the importance of deliberate thinking, manual effort, and critical analysis in their design process.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Modular Information Design Handbook
00:00:12
Speaker
Welcome back to the Policy Vis Podcast. I'm your host, John Schwabisch. On this week's episode of the show, we turn to the new book from Darjan Hill and Nicole Lachmeyer, Modular Information Design Handbook, where they basically break down what most of us would call data vis encodings. So lines, bars, circles, they break that down
00:00:36
Speaker
to its core elements.
Conceptual Foundations of Data Visualization
00:00:37
Speaker
So it's still a circle, but it's not just a circle in a dot plot or a bubble in a bubble chart. They break it down all the way down to a circle. What is a circle? What can it be used for? How can we combine them and modify them? How can we add color? How can we place them? And so the book is really interesting. The book is also beautiful, by the way. I mean, just.
00:00:55
Speaker
just great to hold. But the book is really interesting because it breaks data visualization, the idea or the practice of data visualization, all the way down to its component parts. You can sort of think about it as Leland Wilkinson's The Grammar of Graphics, not quite on steroids, but really getting all the way back to those core
Applying Modular Design in Practice
00:01:15
Speaker
elements. And so I talked to Darion and Nicole about their work, obviously when they are creating things for clients and
00:01:23
Speaker
All those sorts of things but also where we focus most of our conversation on their workshops and how they work with people in this sort of analog way as they break all of these components down and then to build back up and so it's a really interesting discussion to hear how they work with workshop participants and how they work with clients.
00:01:43
Speaker
especially in the sort of analog world where I think most of us are kind of itching to get back behind the computer and write some code or make something in any of the many data visualization tools that are out there. So it's a really fascinating conversation. If you are just getting into data visualization or you are thinking about how you can sort of expand your library or your creative process, I think this conversation is for you. I think the book is also for you because it can help you
00:02:12
Speaker
break things all the way back down to basics where you can then build up and expand what you'll ultimately present to your boss, your client, your audience, whatever it might be, because you can think more specifically in a more detailed way about these different visualizations.
Fast vs. Thoughtful Visualization Approaches
00:02:29
Speaker
And as you're also going to hear,
00:02:31
Speaker
Darian and Nicole talk about the difference between fast thinking and slow thinking, not in the sort of Daniel Kahneman sort of way, but really in how we create our visualizations. We want to click, drag, make things, break some code, run the program, do it all really quickly, get things going, where really this slower process can help us think and help us iterate and ultimately
00:02:54
Speaker
and help us create better products at the end of the day. So I think you're really going to like this conversation. So thanks again for listening to the podcast. Here's my conversation about the new book, Visualizing Complexity, Modular Information Design Handbook.
00:03:09
Speaker
Guardian, Nicole, great to see you in a room together, which is just kind of amazing for doing a virtual interview. This is great. I'm very excited to chat with you about your book, Modular Information Design Handbook.
Aesthetic and Tactile Appeal of the Book
00:03:22
Speaker
As I was saying before we turned on the recording, I hesitate to write in it or like mark it because just the book itself is beautiful. So anyway, so thanks for coming on the show, excited to chat with you both.
00:03:34
Speaker
Thank you. Excited to be here. So I want to start with introductions so people know who you are. And then I want to get right into this book. I have a whole host of questions about the content, but also the book, the physical book itself, because like I said, it's just like, it's just lovely to hold. Um, but let's start with background and introduction. So Nicole, do you want to start just a little bit about, you know, about yourself and how you, how you got to where you are now? Yeah. So, um, yeah.
00:04:02
Speaker
I studied. I'm a trained graphic designer. I studied in Basel in Switzerland.
00:04:09
Speaker
I'm like the co-founder of Superdot together with Diane and we are in our studio. So what you see in the background is our studio.
Authors' Backgrounds and Collaboration
00:04:19
Speaker
Yeah, so Diane and me we met at the master's program in Basel and I did some like data visualization and infographics before and I was always interested how we could do like
00:04:33
Speaker
data design a bit more designy and less technical. So that was kind of my research thing and I also worked for a research project at the Basel School of Design back then when it was about city development and what we could do with data and design there.
00:04:53
Speaker
And Diane had similar ideas, I think, when he came to the Masters. And that's how then after that, we started our business together. And yeah, I think that's... So did you guys start the business like right after your degree? Was that like once you met in doing the program, you're like, when we're done, like, this is what we're going to do?
00:05:16
Speaker
Yeah, so actually I think in the beginning Diane did not want to work with me, but I wanted to work with him because I found... Because back then I was working with someone else. I had like a studio where we actually mainly designed like art books and I loved that, but I thought yeah in the future this is not so interesting anymore to do that for the next, I don't know, 20 years. So I wanted to do something else in a more
00:05:44
Speaker
Into this visionary environment and I thought that would be the good part. So we started a more like loose. Not team, not like a business, but how do you call it that? Collective. In German you would say collective. Yeah, like a loose group of freelancers just to
00:06:04
Speaker
with the idea to get some data with or data design projects and then we see what comes from there. So that was the starting point that was like 12, 12 years ago. Yeah, now in the first year. What a naive idea in the beginning. What's your background? Yeah. So I studied
00:06:27
Speaker
I finished master's in business informatics in Vienna. So I was more in this IT software development area, working for IBM. And then I got actually a very well paid job in a Swiss bank. So actually, that's how I landed in Switzerland.
00:06:48
Speaker
and at some point I just thought okay business and like business life and the way how meetings go could be probably more efficient
00:07:04
Speaker
Based on kind of more visual based decisions and yeah and that's actually how the second career came together so that we actually studied then in the master's program which was kind of the first year launch so it was for both of us something new this was called visual communication and iconic research.
00:07:27
Speaker
And we were the first generation, so actually really in that program we had time and we were both working next to studying and we had kind of this really at some point idea to start something in the information design area, not knowing how that business model actually would look like and everybody knows it's not the easiest business model.
00:07:55
Speaker
That would be a great topic too, right?
Making Data Playful and Accessible
00:07:58
Speaker
Yeah. To talk about business. And what's interesting though, about this book is that a lot of it feels about the process of designing, of creating a visualization.
00:08:12
Speaker
There's kind of two parts I want to make sure that folks know that are listening. So what, what is the, what does the book do? What is the point of the book? And then also just sort of like generally, how do you define modular information design, which is, you know, the name of the book. So like, what is this and how does it play out in your work? Maybe we can start with a bit the background where we were writing the book at all.
00:08:37
Speaker
because we realized after a while in practice that we have a very unique or a certain way of doing data design and then we also found out that it's quite hard to explain to new staff members
00:08:58
Speaker
to tell them how we actually work and what our approach is and then after some years we also had the opportunity to teach at the design school in Switzerland also like information visualization aesthetics something like that and then we realized this is actually not an easy process so how can we make it you know more accessible for
00:09:25
Speaker
like in the first hand for designers and back then to really like show them that data is also a material to design with and it's not just a technical. It's not just a functional right and wrong but you can also design with data and do it like step by step as if yeah and play as
00:09:53
Speaker
like you do it with other elements in design because we had in Basel at the school we in the first year you do all these basic exercises that are in the beginning you think I want to do like poster design and this is not so interesting but you have to do for days you have to do really basic exercises just with black and white and that stuff and then you realize oh this is really
00:10:16
Speaker
really cool to really understand the process. So we thought, how can we bring back that to data design so it gets a bit more playful. Maybe to add, as I've been coming from the business and kind of more this
00:10:34
Speaker
software direction so I was really like okay come on let's do this let's do this on the computer let's be fast and so on and what I actually had to learn here in Switzerland in the school and especially in the design education is that kind of there is no fast so you have to sit down and actually the exercises you get in school are so basic that you're like okay are we here in the middle age
00:11:01
Speaker
but actually you realize by working really by hand and just like with black and white and maybe the teacher is asking you to create different variations of five lines not connecting so kind of what can you do with that and then you're like why should I do it what does it does it make sense
00:11:23
Speaker
But actually, and then you're like, after five minutes, you think you're done. And then they like, okay, no, we're gonna do this for five days. And, and that is actually training you to really think around the corner. And that makes that needs
Importance of Manual Processes in Design
00:11:38
Speaker
time. And then actually, you realize that that approach lets you think about the concept itself. The meaning like, does it make sense what I'm doing?
00:11:47
Speaker
And this is so strong that actually we realize that yes, next to all the valuable books and approaches in the data visualization field, the way we work with this kind of super
00:12:03
Speaker
basic thinking on the core elements like are we talking here about color, or are we talking here about that something is circular, so kind of we are really trying to take apart the discussion, the literacy the discussion on it.
00:12:21
Speaker
What are we here talking about? Or especially if you talk with clients and you get the critique, so they criticize something, then you have to find out what level are we talking about? Are you criticizing now the color? Are you criticizing the content? Are you criticizing the mathematical calculation behind? What are you talking about? So in order to have that kind of really precise way, at some point we decided to say, okay, we have to take
00:12:51
Speaker
somehow try to take the system apart. As we do that in design, as we learned that in design, let's apply that mindset to data visualization to diagrams and to information design. Right. So you've broken it down in the book, you've broken it all the way down to
00:13:10
Speaker
I want to say encodings, but it's even kind of more, even more basic than that. Cause I think when people think visual encodings, they think line and a line chart as opposed to a line that, you know, something that connects two points. You've really broken it all the way down. So I want to get to the, to the client work and how you, to this point, Darion, about like people in a room who are probably used to working on a computer and you're forcing them to draw.
00:13:39
Speaker
You don't work with cards and post it notes and like whether that, you know, how that works, but talk to me about the book itself and how you hope people will use. Cause each page is like a different, again, I'm going to use the word encoding, but I'm going to use that loosely because yeah. I mean, maybe you have a different word, but each page is sort of a different. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Coding and decoding and coding. Yeah. Yeah. So.
00:14:08
Speaker
Basically, that's actually a very big hurdle, especially in today's world where everybody has the feeling even with GPT and all the things that we can be even faster and faster. So that's in every day and in kind of every new client relationship, but also with the relationship with students, it's kind of this first moment we need to explain ourselves why it is important for us to just take out the pace, take out the speed.
00:14:39
Speaker
and kind of go back to this thing which is called paper and try to sketch again and then the people are like yeah I'm not the drawing type of person I cannot draw and all these things come up and then you're like yeah I know me neither so I'm also not the biggest like the
00:14:59
Speaker
but still a line or kind of a box or something we can do and and and then we can also as soon as they do that we say okay are you using color and then we can ask okay why did you use color here and what what does the color stand for or do you want to try to use pattern instead of color so we are there step by step trying to really make
00:15:23
Speaker
out of that that hurdle is on the other hand a potential because people have that resistance that they I don't want to do it so actually they do it very efficient so actually because you don't want to draw you try to do it very efficient and actually quite a good point in this process and then there is this magical moment when the class or people have more than one hand-drawn piece of paper somewhere
00:15:51
Speaker
and we put them all next to each other and then you realize that you have I don't know 30 different ways to solve the problem and before there was maybe five ways to solve the problem in Microsoft Excel so actually you're like okay this is now getting interesting and that's kind of this icebreaker situation where people see okay this is a
00:16:13
Speaker
process. This is kind of something that needs time. It's actually inviting, because people start chatting with each other. And there is this kind of, let's do this, let's do this atmosphere, like kind of, okay, let's, let's do the next one. Like, what is happening next? Yeah, so that's really helping, because before, in the meetings, we, we tried to be very fast with our clients also. And we just realized that then
00:16:42
Speaker
we have discussions or critique we got critique where we were not sure is this because we used the wrong color was it because they really because we missed the topic was it that the concept is bad so actually we tried to take that apart and as we stay for a long time on paper in order to clarify that we really all together got the topic right the concept is right the diagram is right
Engaging with Data Design in Workshops
00:17:10
Speaker
The visual language is right. And then we go into the digital. Yeah. So Nicole is a designer. I want to ask you cause cause you mentioned something so funny, like I can't draw, right? Like I say that all the time. Cause like, I feel like, but like every designer I talked to is like, everybody could draw. So like when you're working with people, like how, when they say I can't draw, I can't sketch, like how do you help them over that? That hump over that block?
00:17:39
Speaker
Yeah I mean when we do workshops we give them like a nice paper and maybe the similar set of pens and so they see what the others are doing. Stencils. Yeah maybe stencils or rulers so they can work with rulers as well so if they don't want to do like hand drawn stuff so. Right. Yeah I think that that's working pretty well and engaging.
00:18:04
Speaker
Yeah, and do you do you think it having this this idea sort of behind all this that eventually I'm going to be using data. Do you think that helps people.
00:18:15
Speaker
I'm always curious about because I'm certainly put myself in this camp of like more like the quantitative data side rather than the art design side and that's always that barrier but I wonder whether you say to someone hey we're gonna draw but in the background there's data like that's where you're comfortable and I wonder if that helps people get over this hump of like I can't draw but I do know data
00:18:38
Speaker
Yeah, it's exactly that connection from the table to the design. So you mentioned chartreuse before, so we work maybe less with chartreuse, I mean they're fine, it's an interesting and a good approach.
00:18:58
Speaker
But for us, it's like through doing that by hand, to working with the data by hand, you actually realize, you understand also like the standard charts much better. So this is also maybe one of the aims in the end, not to say, okay, with this drawing, it's like art and then make the most beautiful sketch and mine is more beautiful than yours.
00:19:23
Speaker
So it's actually made through drawing, you understand that this process from data, what happens from the table with the raw data to the visualization, no matter if it's like a regular bar chart or pie chart or fancy like data art stuff, you know, like this connection from, from, from data to the, yeah.
00:19:47
Speaker
to the product. Maybe I add someone. Yeah, sure. So you said understanding, kind of understanding of the diagram. But the other thing is also that we are not suggesting a new alternative to data analysis, like explorative analysis with tools that you do with big data and so on. That's not actually what we... So that world
00:20:11
Speaker
it's good as it is. So yeah, I think calculating finding patterns and so on. That's one thing. The other is that you say, okay, how can I bring this to the audience? How can I kind of translate it? How can I invite people to look at my findings? So actually, if you say, I have my findings, I'm fine with that, you don't need to do that. So you did, you find your pattern and everything in script. But if you say, okay, I want to bring it to a wider audience, then maybe it gets interesting to say, okay,
00:20:40
Speaker
Let's and that's actually the part where we say, okay, let them take out a little because you don't need big data to do that. So kind of take out a little, maybe a minimum, an average and a maximum country or something. So kind of take out some little pieces out of that big table.
00:20:56
Speaker
So which is representing the idea. And then let's try on that little scale, that little amount to draw things. And the interesting point is it's through drawing, you actually, because it's slow and you don't want to do that, you start thinking still about your data and the concept. And very often the process is that people through doing it, they actually understand the data in a new way. So actually that's coming then back again to that explorative part.
00:21:26
Speaker
Right. Do you find a difference between working with a group that people are from all different walks of life and kind of a more public kind of workshop versus when you're working with a team in, you know, within a particular, you know, specific company or with, you know, they are their own team?
Diverse Interactions in Workshops
00:21:48
Speaker
Like,
00:21:49
Speaker
do you do you find that people work together and interact in different ways when they know each other versus when they're when they're you know part of a part of a team and a pre-existing team yeah i would say i would answer it fast no because
00:22:10
Speaker
We did workshops where we had representatives from European, from all over Europe, coming together at the federal statistics department, having three-day workshop on data visualization. So there were statisticians coming from everywhere, never worked before, but as soon as they were the sketches on the table, they started talking to each other and said, oh, this is actually an interesting approach. Why did they do that? So actually it was a conversation started.
00:22:36
Speaker
And the same thing happens if the people know each other very well in the team and we go to a certain company and they want to do the workshop. Actually, I would say the same thing happens. So it's very, it's similar. Yeah. Also, there's also a connection to the draw chooser again, because when you have a lot of variations, you can start to discuss which option would fit that data best or
00:23:05
Speaker
I mean, depending on the target that you have, of course, but, you know, you have to selection where you can choose from. And it's not like one chart is right at the other one is wrong, maybe, I mean, depends on the data, but you can also see what doesn't work, not just what is working, you know.
00:23:24
Speaker
So you have this variation and you can look at it and then discuss and decide. Like this also learning to decide when you are using other tools like, I don't know, Excel, Tableau, whatever, it doesn't matter for us. Also there you have to be able to make decisions. So I think that model information design can help you finding that decision.
00:23:47
Speaker
Yeah, I have sort of a complicated relationship with the chart chooser. I mean, I have my own, but I also feel like the phrase chart chooser is complicated, as you said. It's not like there's an answer, like none of these are an answer. It is just variations or just opportunities that you can use. But again, your work,
00:24:12
Speaker
boils that down even further, right? Because I think the chart users would say, okay, scatter plot, dot plot, bubble chart, but you break that down even further into here is a circle, here is a circle with
00:24:27
Speaker
you know, a variation on the circle itself. And so do you find as you're working with folks that, again, to your point about this fast versus slow, which I really love that idea, do you find that people want to move really fast? They're like, oh, circle, okay, I'll make a scatterplot. But then you have to pull and rein them back in, like you find that. Yeah, exactly, exactly. But I also always say that
00:24:55
Speaker
For the first sketches, you also have to do that. You have to do the bar chart or the kind of log just to do it and then you can move from there. You can relate to the other basic chart. But in general, with our elements, you could build all the standard charts.
00:25:17
Speaker
broken down even more. It's a combination of the elements, but you can build everything. Yeah, right. And that makes it actually the system also complicated and kind of it's advanced. So because it's so elemental, people who are not used to work with different diagram types and haven't seen different diagram types, for them to say, there is a beauty
00:25:46
Speaker
that kind of taking it apart into the smallest piece, it's kind of, whoa, it's kind of two big signs. It's like, why should I do that? So actually, we just discovered those. So we thought when we brought up modern information design that, oh, this is so easy. It's so simple. It's for everyone. And then we realized, OK, actually, people have more advantage if they are not beginners. So yeah. Oh, right.
00:26:14
Speaker
Well, it's interesting because every part of a graph can be broken down, right? I think a lot of people think about...
00:26:20
Speaker
I do this exercise where you show them a graph and they see the line chart, the line goes up and then it comes down. But they miss the fact that all the labels and the axis lines and the tick marks and all that stuff are things that you can control. And the way you have set this up is you've broken that all the way down to its core elements of each mark, as it were, is its own thing in the space.
00:26:46
Speaker
Exactly. Each is one component you can think about. So how do you then at the end of the workshop, the end of the day, you've got people have pencils and markers and paper all over the place, which sounds amazing.
Applying Workshop Learnings to Workplaces
00:27:02
Speaker
How do you
00:27:05
Speaker
How do you help them to the next step which is they're going to go back to work the next day and they're going to have to implement this and they're probably right back behind the computer. So how do you how do you help them bridge that that last that last part.
00:27:22
Speaker
Yeah, so in this, that's mostly when people are coming for kind of further education situation, that kind of they are working somewhere, students, it's easier. Because if people are from professional side, then they're like, okay, how should I do that next day? And then normally discussion goes into the direction that you say, okay, maybe, I mean, there is no tool
00:27:48
Speaker
not yet, which is doing this kind of super elementary combination. Yeah. But if people go back to their everyday business, and they are more conscious on the choice
00:28:07
Speaker
meet in Excel. Let's talk because the Excel is the most simple thing. But they are aware why they use the line and they are aware that they are not just using all color palettes, but they use maybe red for present and dark red for the future. No, like let's say light red for future because it's blurry and the dark for the past so that you have already little
00:28:33
Speaker
changes inside which make the whole thing more readable, then we say, okay, mission achieved. Right.
00:28:40
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's about data literacy and everyday use of charts. And also from it, I'm saying learning to see, looking at things more carefully. And I think already that helps you to find decisions. Yeah, absolutely.
00:29:04
Speaker
I want to come back to the book specifically because like I said at the front it is just lovely to hold and why I haven't marked it up and folded all the pages and everything but so can you tell me can you just tell me about the the process of of writing the book and you know not just like page by page but like
00:29:27
Speaker
you know when you started talking to publishers about actually doing this what was that like did you have to do were you like we're gonna lay this book out where we want this kind of page you know paper type i mean i can imagine just looking at your studio behind you that you know you know what kind of paper you want so what was the whole yeah that whole that whole process like
Creative Process of Designing the Book
00:29:48
Speaker
Yeah, I mean for us it was not since this is our first like book we did not know exactly when to approach a publisher so how much do we need to have. And we had like this process where we were like,
00:30:02
Speaker
drawing of course and all the pages or all the diagrams and then also I mean all the elements we were drawing them step by step by hand and we were making notes also by hand and then we started to put the system together and we discussed a lot how the system could work so it was what I want to say with that is that
00:30:28
Speaker
it's not like we wrote all the text and then we added the images or you know we found the images so it was like next to each other like writing at the same time as still designing the system and developing the system so it was like more hand in hand which i think was not easy for the publisher in the end because we had to
00:30:50
Speaker
I think they had like this format. I don't know. Yeah. Something that everything was in one. And we thought, yeah, it's all like lined up. Right. It's great to see the visual because you cannot understand the visual without the text. Yeah. Yeah. The text. You cannot understand the text without the visual. That's more important.
00:31:10
Speaker
in that process, were you also, I assume that you were also teaching and obviously doing work and teaching and doing workshops? Like, were you sort of, as you were teaching and learning, seeing things that worked and didn't work, was that feeding back into the book itself? Like, was it all this, like, mess of everything happening at the same time?
00:31:29
Speaker
Exactly. It was a constant. I mean, we had a constant discussion and restructuring. I mean, the whole system, I think we have redone it four times. So again, we thought it's done the next day. Nico comes and said, actually, I think that doesn't work. So actually, then we started the game and again. And at some point we were like, okay, now listen, I think we have to finish it now. And at some point we really had this
00:31:59
Speaker
the whole book in hand drawings, like Jason's that stapled together, right? Then we're like, okay, I think this is good enough. Let's
00:32:09
Speaker
send this to the publisher and then we ask six publishers and we're like okay probably none of them will answer and actually five of them answered positively that they would bring it out so we're like okay uh okay because we had this blueprint that was the blueprint of the book yeah right and so from there how did you um did you when you were choosing between these i mean that's amazing they had five five publishers interested
00:32:37
Speaker
Were you given again, this is your first book, you kind of learn over time, like what you're looking for, but were you
00:32:45
Speaker
looking for a publisher that would help you build the physical book that you wanted it to look and feel like? Was that your first concern? Or did you want someone who would really edit the book? I'm curious what you were just looking for. I think more like a partner to edit the content and to have another perspective. Because as I said, I was a book designer before. I did artist books. So I had this
00:33:12
Speaker
clear idea in mind that I wanted to do a kind of a design book
00:33:17
Speaker
for about data so it had to come like really there was no other way that we would have um designed it ourselves because it's so close together like the content and the design i could never have given it to someone else yeah it had to be Nico so kind of publisher choice was who is allowing us to do everything ourselves right yeah right yeah
00:33:42
Speaker
Exactly and then like of course you find compromises because the publisher says okay we are always using that paper and you can choose from this one or the other one and we are working with this printing company that you cannot choose and how many copies that are printed you cannot decide on that but like design wise
00:34:06
Speaker
Yeah, I could know we were lucky that we could decide. Yeah. Yeah. No, that is that is fantastic. Yeah. I mean, that's that's what you need. And when folks come in for a workshop, do they.
00:34:23
Speaker
Do they work from the book or because for folks who don't know, who don't have the book, which they, for listeners who don't know, they don't have the book, they should. There's a fold out poster, and I can see it on your wall there. There's a fold out poster that comes with it, but I'm curious when people come to the workshop, do they
00:34:42
Speaker
do they work from the book itself or is that like something you give them later or is that just like it's just this is just the model for how you teach it but the book isn't like in the classroom so how do you yeah i mean i guess how does that work yeah um actually we're quite flexible so normally different university programs they they ask us that the book
Adaptability of Workshops
00:35:11
Speaker
is kind of must not be the like condition for the workshop so kind of we start from that point that people don't have the book sometimes people say yeah I would like to have the book or they already ordered the book that's very good we kind of restart or kind of rebuild up the whole workshop by bringing and projecting all the elements showing and kind of that's why there is this kind of
00:35:36
Speaker
summary posts, they're having all the elements. And so we do that step by step. And if people want to have the book, it's amazing. If they want to have only the post, it's also good. And if they want to have none of that, it's also okay because we are providing the information during workshop.
00:35:55
Speaker
Sure. Well, I love it. I think it's great. I think you've broken down the core elements and I think it's terrific for especially for people who are just getting their feet into this field. And the last thing I wanted to ask you is on that topic of
00:36:11
Speaker
how do you think about folks who at least think they're more advanced in data visualization, right? Like we all think we're great at what we do, right? But like for those folks who might come in and say, I code in R or JavaScript, I don't, like how do you work with those folks? You kind of like, do you feel like you need to break them down and then build them back up again?
00:36:36
Speaker
the funny thing is that I had a workshop with people who are at the university with some scientists that they are working with R mostly and they said oh this concept I can really it's really familiar to me because like this is also kind of how R works and I can really relate to it so they
00:36:57
Speaker
We didn't know that before because we don't work with R but yeah that was cool to know so we are still getting feedback or collecting feedback so everyone who wants to add something we are happy to know about how people are using the books because for us it was also an experiment.
00:37:20
Speaker
So before we go, I'll put links to the book, obviously. And you had this really cool post on LinkedIn that had pictures from a workshop. So I'll put all that. But where can folks find you? How can they get involved in one of these workshops? Where can folks find you both?
00:37:40
Speaker
So Superdot Studio, that's the address from the company. They can write us, they can find us, like we're personal profiles on LinkedIn and Instagram. We're happy to connect with people. We are in Switzerland, in Basel, open to chat, open for feedback. And
00:38:01
Speaker
Also, if people are interested, we have also a little format, what we started in Vienna and Switzerland and kind of it got online, it was called on data and design, where also we invite people from the field sharing more the visual part, the images of the practice and how they work and how they use data in a creative way. So actually also on data and design, they can approach us.
00:38:28
Speaker
The book should be available everywhere. We hope it's still available. That's terrific. Well, I'll put links to all that. Folks should definitely check it out. So it's Visualizing Complexity, Modular Information Design Handbook by Dorian Hill and Nicole Lachmeyer. Thank you both so much for coming on the show. Thank you. Great chatting. Thank you for having us. It was great fun. Thanks. Yeah, it's cool.
00:38:55
Speaker
Thanks to everyone for tuning into this week's episode of the show. I hope you enjoyed that. I hope you'll take a couple of minutes and check out the book. I've put the links to the SuperDot Studio and to the book and a few other things in the show notes to this episode. I also hope you'll take just a moment to rate or review the podcast. It really helps me find new guests, broaden the reach of the show, and improve how lots of people visualize their content.
00:39:22
Speaker
If you'd like to check out my work, you should head over to policyvis.com if you're interested in moving your data visualization skills to the next level. I've got a lot of books that I've written on data visualization, on presentation skills, on making data visualizations in Excel. Lots of great stuff over there at policyvis.com. So until next time, this has been the Policy Vis podcast. Thanks so much for listening.