Creatively Communicating Climate Change in a Data-Heavy World

written by Rachel Meier.

The days of the static bar graph and pie chart are going by the wayside. In our ever-growing digital world, there are many new software options and apps that are available to help communicate data more creatively to the public. Over the past few years, Lotus has been working to incorporate many of these new technologies into our work.

Especially this year, visualizing data that can be hosted digitally has become extremely important. As more projects and programs move online, companies are similarly transitioning the way they transmit and translate data to their clients and the world. Some platforms create data dashboards that show multiple interactive graphs and charts (Power BI and Tableau), websites that create innovative new chart types to help show data in unique and engaging ways (SankeyMatic and Vizzlo), and websites that illustrate data on a map and create story websites around the data (ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS StoryMaps). There are even platforms to help virtually engage with the public and stakeholders, and Lotus has taken advantage of many of these platforms!

There are many advantages to using these new platforms. One reason is that users enjoy being able to interact with their data and information in general. When the user can manipulate the data on their own, they are able to not only access the specific information they need more quickly but they are also able to teach themselves. One example of this is the dashboard seen below. Lotus worked with the Colorado Energy Office (CEO) to create the Rebuild and Re-energize Colorado website, which includes a dashboard that tells the story of the Energy Performance Contracting program. If the user selects a project on the map, the charts and the meters change to share details about that project.

Another reason to switch from static charts is that users can more easily draw their own conclusions when the data is presented to them in an interactive format. Many people learn best by doing, and these innovative charts and dashboards allow the user to “mess around” until they come to a conclusion or discover a unique takeaway that drives them back to explore the data further. The multitude of new chart types also allows the creator to create charts for all different types of users and learners, ideally making the data easy to understand regardless of who is looking at or using it. Finally, using these visualizations can help create a story around your data. Especially with platforms that use maps and other methods of tying data to places, users are better able to comprehend how the data will impact their lives. An example of this is a map from the CEO website which describes the density and distribution of electric vehicle charging stations across the state and how cities are planning for expanded charging infrastructure.

Stories are one of the oldest forms of communication.[1] By incorporating your data and charts into a story, you create a logical format from which users can draw conclusions and find takeaways. Narratives can help the reader understand complex statistics and data and can also help the researcher or data collector better understand their data and communicate it effectively with their audience. Using stories to communicate your data can also lead your user to take action. Telling the story about your data (including through audio) can also be useful in communicating the data to audiences that may not be visual learners or may not be able to see. These audiences are typically left out of the conversation when deciding how to visualize data and using stories that are verbalized can help bring these audiences in and make data science more accessible and inclusive.

Data visualization and storytelling have evolved greatly in recent years and will likely continue to evolve into the future. Lotus will continue to use these platforms and will experiment with new platforms not yet created to be able to find the best way to communicate our work with clients and the public.

[1] See: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/6f9a/2595ae37f1c03f7e8b2902965fef78e40bcd.pdf.