Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Episode #102: Severino Ribecca
174 Plays7 years ago
You know Severino Ribecca. He’s the one who runsThe Data Visualisation Catalogue, a library of different information visualisation types. Sev and I have also worked together for a few years developing the various Graphic Continuum products. Sev is a graphic...
The post Episode #102: Severino Ribecca appeared first on PolicyViz.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction of Severino Rebecca
00:00:11
Speaker
Welcome back to the Policy Vins Podcast. I'm your host, John Schwabish. On this week's episode, I have a very special guest, an old friend who I have worked with for several years now, but we've never actually spoken. It's always been emailed, but we finally get to talk in person. Well, not in person on Skype, but we get to talk.
00:00:30
Speaker
So I'm very excited to have Severino Rebecca on the show. Severino's a designer. He's a teacher. He's a data vis creator. And most of you probably know him from creating and maintaining the data visualization catalog. And Sev and I have also worked for a long time on the graphic continuum projects. And he helps me with a lot of design needs that I have. He's always the first guy I go to. Sev, great to have you on the show. Oh, thanks for having me.
00:00:58
Speaker
It's great to finally talk to you.
Severino's Background and Recent Move
00:01:01
Speaker
You are now in London. How are things? Things have been good. It's been, you know, not too bad weather. I've just been settling back in. I've just recently moved back over two months ago. Lovely. And why don't we start by having you talk a little bit about what you do and your background so people can get a sense of the type of work that you do. Okay. My original background is in graphic design. So I originally trained as a graphic designer.
00:01:28
Speaker
But I became more interested in information design and data visualization. And for a while, for a few years now, I've been working as a freelance graphic designer. But I've started to move away into more writing and researching into data visualization. And I've also started getting more into teaching as well. And you're developing a new course right now, right?
00:01:52
Speaker
Yeah, I'm currently working on an Illustrator Adobe Illustrator based course and I'm going to primarily focus more on data visualizations. So learning to utilize the graph tools and learning to also take advantage of them to choose other types of charts that you normally can't do or to
00:02:12
Speaker
use these tools to their full effect.
Adobe Illustrator: Challenges and Opportunities
00:02:16
Speaker
So I have a whole list of questions I want to talk about, but I want to ask you a little bit about Illustrator. And I'm definitely not, you know, I can hold my own in Illustrator, but certainly not one of my core skill sets. But the thing that always bugs me about Illustrator is the graphing tool is kind of terrible.
00:02:33
Speaker
What is going on there? What is your approach when you are making a graphing illustrator? What is your process? My process is make the graph with the data and then break the thing apart and then the data is sort of gone and move things around. But do you have a process where you try to hold things together a little bit more with the data? How do you use that graphing tool in Illustrator, which I personally think is kind of terrible?
00:02:56
Speaker
Well, I think the problem is Adobe hasn't updated it in years and it is quite limited. The reason I'm just primarily going with Illustrator is because I'm used to teaching that now, so I'm going to try and transition from that into data visualization and then maybe I will go into another course as well. But to answer your question on how to work with data using the graph tools and that, you can actually change aspects of the graph without having to ungroup it and break it apart.
00:03:25
Speaker
If you use a feature such as the group selection tool, you can still select elements of the graph and still change, for example, the color or the stroke weights. And if you right click, you can go back into the data and still make some changes and update it.
00:03:41
Speaker
Do you think Illustrator is one of those tools that people can learn on their own or is it one where you really do need to take a class or even an online course like how I get a lot of people who want to use Illustrator and I find it a very difficult tool to use. I think like most tools it's hard once you know the first time but like is it one of those tools that you think people need to get some training before they start using it.
00:04:06
Speaker
I think it depends on the person because originally I just bought myself a book and then I just went through it myself and taught myself within a week. But the thing is, I think you would maybe still need to take a course to get a better understanding from the kind of foundational level up to become more proficient with it because I've been using it for years, but I took a course, I think was it last year or the year before? And there was still quite a few things I didn't know about it. So I'm kind of
00:04:34
Speaker
Not too sure how to answer that. I would say for some people, I think they would need to take a course because it is quite complicated and there is a lot of tools in it to use. Yeah. Well, I'm bummed that you're teaching the class in London because if it was here, I would take it. But yeah. Maybe we could do it online. I think it would be interesting to move on to online teaching as well. So maybe I could start teaching as well in the US if it's possible.
00:04:58
Speaker
Absolutely. Absolutely. That'd be great. Well, I look forward to that. But let's talk about your primary project.
Creation and Evolution of the Data Visualization Catalog
00:05:04
Speaker
Well, I think your primary project at the moment, which is the data visualization catalog. Can you talk about the background of the catalog and where you're going with it and what the goal is of the project? The background was originally I wanted to just improve my own knowledge and skill in data visualization. So I just started with a spreadsheet and I collected all the charts I could find out about
00:05:28
Speaker
tools I could use to draw them with. And then I started thinking about what's the best way I can select a chart for my needs for each project. And I think that's how the kind of project was born. And at the time, I wanted to create a website that just out of interest, I wanted to try producing my own website. So I've got some good content here. Why don't I try building a website based on this? And that's how I got started.
00:05:59
Speaker
What does it take for you to keep it updated and to continually update it? I mean, you're always adding more graphs, you're adding more descriptions. Like what does it take for you to keep that thing going, you know, continually updated? Well, I've actually stopped with the adding in the chart reference pages because it was quite difficult. I built all the website from some code. So there's no content management system. And before my process was to
00:06:28
Speaker
first you know select a chart I wanted to research into and then I would spend time looking through I have a free books through primary sources and secondary sources online and trying to read and study this chart in depth as possible so I can get a proper understanding of it so I know both why this chart is good what its strengths and weaknesses are but also trying to figure out how it's constructed and then once I do that I just kind of sit down and
00:06:57
Speaker
I just start writing, writing my description of what I think this chart does, what best describes it to other people. And then I'm just producing as well the kind of graphics to help in the form of anatomies, you know, diagrams, explaining how it works to hopefully explain all the bits and hopefully, you know, provide people a way to understand how it's how it's constructed. Now my focus is
00:07:26
Speaker
probably going to be looking more in a broader sense of data visualization, looking at a more fundamental level. But I'm still going to be kind of looking into charts, just I'm not going to be so focused on research on the different chart types.
00:07:40
Speaker
Sure. Yeah. You have a talk coming up in a few weeks on expanding your data visualization vocabulary. So I'm curious whether you think people need to expand their graphic literacy, whether you think people create bad graphs because they don't know other ways. And what are some of these fundamentals that people need to know so that they can expand their data visibility vocabulary? I don't know the audience exactly, but I'm expecting it to be part from the
00:08:05
Speaker
creative industry, mostly designers, and they're probably not going to be database experts. So I think it's probably good to just introduce them to fundamental elements of database, just maybe provide a brief description, explain, for example, how charts are constructed, how we can encode values into different visual vocabulary or different properties. I guess you would call this in the visual variables.
00:08:34
Speaker
and just to give people a better sense of how charts are made. But also I think it'd be also good to just kind of look at what functions help people understand what they need to use charts for and looking at the kind of tasks that charts can help them fulfill. And then I believe after I'm going to try and go through as many charts as I can, I think maybe around 20.
00:09:00
Speaker
and just try to help build up a vocabulary of different chart types. With language, you have like a vocabulary with loads of different words you know how to use. And I think it's the same with data visualization. So if you don't have very good vocabulary in a language sense, then you probably don't know how to explain yourself so well, or you're probably not as articulate. So I think
00:09:23
Speaker
The same is with data visualization. Maybe people are producing bar charts because they don't know the right chart for their type of data. So I think it's maybe not necessarily the main factor, but it could be a factor affecting the amount of bar charts that are out there.
00:09:39
Speaker
Yeah, you know, the tools that people are using the most are things like Excel and maybe Google Sheets, and the default menus only have so many graphs in them. And I often wonder when I show people new graph types, or not new graph types, but graph types that aren't in these default menus. So if I show them a slope chart, for example, whether they're sort of dismissed because, oh, it's not something I know how to make, or it's not a default thing, and so therefore, and I don't know how to code, and I don't know how to do this, and so I'm just going to ignore it.
00:10:06
Speaker
but it might be a better graph type. So when you're working with people or with clients or with students, how do you get around this? I mean, maybe you don't think this is a problem, but how do you get around this idea that people get sort of flummoxed by not being able to do something easily in the tool that they know how to use?
Expanding the Visual Vocabulary
00:10:27
Speaker
I think the problem is just familiarity. So, you know, the question is, how do you make people more familiar with different chart types?
00:10:35
Speaker
And I guess, I guess it's just exposure. If you expose them more, if it's more, they have more options available. I mean, I think the funny thing as well, you were saying that people are just used to the charts that are in Excel is that, you know, you also have some pretty bad charts that you can generate there as well, such as the 3d pie charts and the 3d bar charts, et cetera. So maybe that's a bad thing.
00:11:00
Speaker
Yeah, I'm still waiting for someone to write a script that will black out all those 3D cone diagrams. Do you have a favorite chart type? I guess when you know so many charts, it makes it harder to choose. At the top, maybe like a tree diagram. I quite like them. Or Sankey.
00:11:24
Speaker
It's hard when you're given so much choice. It's hard to make a selection. So we've worked for a while on the graphic continuum project, which I sort of view as a complement to the database catalog.
00:11:43
Speaker
Do you want to talk a little bit about the thought process you had as we were working on the graphic continuum? And we started a long time ago on the poster version, and then we did a desktop version that was more of a core reference piece, and then we have the cards as well. But we started on that project a long time ago. We started an analog drawing before we moved it into the digital.
00:12:01
Speaker
And one of the differences, I think, between that and the Data Vis catalog, not just that the catalog is online and has interactivity and the continuum is a static piece, but the overlap between the graphs that fall into different categories. So a column chart can be used to show changes over time, but also to compare categories.
00:12:23
Speaker
So do you have thoughts on both your creation process for these multiple projects, but also how you view them, both the continuum and the catalog and how they relate to one another? I think the way they probably relate to one another is based on them being, I guess, a resource for people to use to kind of help them, I guess, in their chart selection process or to help them get some kind of inspiration. And other than that, I'm just trying to think, when we first started this project together,
00:12:53
Speaker
I was still kind of new and I was still kind of learning about all these charts because you provided a huge list of charts and I was actually still not familiar with many of them. So for me, it was a learning process. And we went through a number of iterations for this project. So we were trying to decide how we were going to structure everything. I think we started looking at based on the visual variables. So we were looking at where we're going to visualize it based on that or
00:13:21
Speaker
on the type of
Exploring the Graphic Continuum Project
00:13:23
Speaker
chart family. I think the thing that's similar to the database catalog is that we ended up just falling on showing the charts and organizing them based on their functions. We at one point had a circular thing. It would look like a bunch of Ferris wheels all next to each other, which didn't quite work out. I think the biggest challenge we had was a way to show these overlaps. Because we at one point were drawing all of the lines, which was just a disaster.
00:13:51
Speaker
But how do you think about graphs that have multiple purposes? I think this is one of the, obviously the biggest question people have when they're trying to visualize their data is, I have some data, what's the graph I should use? And there's oftentimes no answer to the graph, there's no one to one. So how do you think about that when you are creating a visualization or you are teaching people how to work with data? And how do you think about choosing the graph for the data that you have?
00:14:19
Speaker
Well, I think it's like you've said, there's no definitive answer for everyone for every chart. And I think this is a problem to do with categorization. And I think this is something I want to look into because it's like you've said, there's some charts have multiple functions to them and some can be used for other things. And it's kind of not contradictions, but I would say there's some confusion sometimes. And it can be quite difficult to suggest what charts someone should go down. Cause there's all these other factors. It's not just based on the function as well. It could be.
00:14:48
Speaker
If you've got a project you also have to consider your audience as well. You know, more complicated charts that take more time to process and to decipher might not be suited for audiences that maybe don't have much time and need to grasp it quickly or they're just not educated enough on charts to be able to understand them. So there's that factor to consider as well. There's also the type of data it is. It could be some subjects are more suited to other charts as well and there's that as well.
00:15:18
Speaker
And it's, I think it's a really difficult design, the kind of system where you can produce an algorithm that, you know, can help filter people right into the right chart for their needs. And I think this is something that's still in development and it's still not just me, but other people are also researching into as well. Um, yeah. So I think it's problem is just maybe it's looking at if we can categorize them or we can't, and then it's also maybe there's all these other factors. If it's, you know, maybe there's a particular type of industry.
00:15:48
Speaker
maybe marketing or you've got data journalism or just general design. They might have different approaches to how they visualize data so that might affect your thought process in selecting charts as well. No, I think that's right and I think the audience is probably the biggest thing as you mentioned. Before we close up, what other projects are you working
Future Plans and Multilingual Efforts
00:16:08
Speaker
on? What do you have in the hopper that you're excited about? You've got the teaching that you're doing. Anything else in the hopper that you're excited about? At the moment, I'm currently
00:16:17
Speaker
translating the website into other languages, the database catalog website. I've got somebody who's volunteered to translate the website into Turkish and she's a data journalism lecturer in Turkey, so look out for that. I also have a Spanish translation as well, so I'm looking to translate the website into Spanish and I'm also looking to
00:16:46
Speaker
contribute more to the blog if I can eventually as well and focus more on looking to the design aspects of charts or in data visualization in general. I want to think about that more and write more onto that and see what I can get out there. That's great to have the different languages get it into different areas of the world. That is fantastic.
00:17:09
Speaker
Terrific. Sev, thanks for coming on the show. I'm excited about seeing the Dataviz catalog expand and all the new content you can add to it, and hopefully to see one of your Illustrator courses make its way over here to the US. So again, thanks for coming on the show. No problem. Thanks for having me.
00:17:25
Speaker
And thanks to everyone for tuning in. Hopefully you'll be able to check out the database catalog. If you haven't already, you should go over there, check it out. There's lots of different resources and graphics that you can go explore and use. So if you have questions for me or for Sev, please let me know on the website or on Twitter. And so this has been the policy of this podcast. Thanks a lot for listening.