Visualisation guide helps to ‘humanise’ data

Data dashboards exploded in popularity during the pandemic as cities and other government organisations needed to share information on Covid-19 cases, support resources, and vaccines. Since then, the trend has continued, with cities using dashboards and visualisations to communicate everything from how funding is being spent to economic recovery, public safety and climate action.

Amanda Graor, Chief Innovation Officer at the Mid-America Regional Council (MARC), a non-profit association of city and county governments and the metropolitan planning organisation for the bi-state Kansas City region, is urging data enthusiasts to take a human approach to presenting information.

At MARC, Graor worked with the public affairs team to create a data visualisation style guide akin to those that are common for written communications and branding.

However, it goes beyond spelling conventions, colour palettes and fonts to help people tell a clear story with data.

“It also talks about being intentional about what kind of chart you’re using, how people interpret data, and accessibility, bias and language – all the things that go around supporting data,” Graor told Cities Today in an interview on the sidelines of the recent City Leadership Forum in Long Beach.

Consideration should be given when writing and presenting data about race, for example. Pink and blue to depict gender is a no-no, says Graor.

Graor had used red and green in a dashboard to represent greenhouse gas emissions over time. She learned during a certification course on data visualisation and infographic design that a continuum of colour was a better and less confusing choice to show emissions levels.

Central resource

As more people across MARC give presentations to community groups, city councils and planning commissions, Graor saw an opportunity to provide centralised guidelines for staff, inspired by a similar tool from the Urban Institute think tank.

MARC’s guide encourages staff to keep their end goal and audience in mind when presenting information, and provides ideas on how to think through visualisations.

“Does it really need to be a dashboard? Or is a bar chart more appropriate, or a tree map?” Graor says.

The guidance gives a steer on the better use of annotations and chart titles and the removal of visual clutter, as well as outlining some of the psychology of how people interpret graphs. For example, research shows that pie charts can be challenging when they include too many categories because people don’t percieve angles as easily as they do heights.

The style guide is being tested internally alongside training, and Graor hopes in the future it will be helpful for more cities and counties.

“It focuses on community presentations of data and we work with  a lot of demographic data,” she says. “That’s talking about people, so let’s humanise the data. Don’t just talk about it as dollars or budgets – you’re talking about populations and people and their life situations, so we need to be sensitive with how we present that information.”

She adds that a consistent and thoughtful approach also helps to build trust with audiences.

Drone training takes off

Another project led by Graor aims to get more people on the same page when it comes to drones.

As drones are used in a growing range of public sector operations, a new initiative offers cost-effective training in the Kansas City region and a chance to collaborate across disciplines.

MARC worked with the Kansas Department of Transportation and Kansas State Salina University to make Part 107 training available at the K-State Olathe campus in Olathe, Kansas, with the cost defrayed by the KDOT Innovative Technology fund. The training covers various aspects of operating a small unmanned aircraft system (UAS) and prepares delegates to take the Federal Aviation Administration exam.

“More and more local governments are using drones,” says Graor. “Law enforcement and emergency services certainly use them a lot, but public works departments and building codes inspectors are also using them because they’re safer ways to inspect roofs and bridges.”

Previously, city and county officials in the region were travelling to Salina for the training, which is around a three-hour drive from Kansas City and required several nights away from home.

The course cost through MARC is US$405, which is around half of what it would otherwise cost.

“This also eliminates all of those travel costs that were associated with the training and lets people go home at night,” says Graor. “They can pick up their kids from daycare or whatever at the end of the day, instead of having to be away for a whole week.”

Three training sessions are scheduled as a pilot programme, with the first taking place this month. If they’re successful, MARC hopes to establish an ongoing partnership so the training can be offered on an ongoing basis once or twice per year.

Collaboration

MARC also wants to bring together a multidisciplinary network around the training.

“There have been other courses in the region, but they tend to be targeted to a certain discipline like law enforcement or buildings,” Graor says.

“My theory is that something multi-disciplinary will help people learn from each other within local government in a really meaningful way.”

This could include sharing use cases and collaborating around issues such as privacy and data management and storage.

Agencies could also plan for how drones could be co-ordinated during certain scenarios to prevent duplication and confusion – such as in the event of a serious highway crash.

“When multiple disciplines have to come together at the scene, you don’t want a situation where you’re trying to figure out who goes first when people are in danger. You want to figure out all those things beforehand,” Graor says.

MARC has led collaborative efforts around potentially disruptive new technologies before.

In 2018, the organisation released a policy framework to help the region position itself to maximise opportunities and minimise negative impacts from autonomous vehicles (AVs). MARC formed an AV taskforce made up of a broad group of stakeholders and continues to advance this work.