Daniel Wolfe and Niko Kommenda, the former authors of the Washington Post’s data-driven Climate Lab column, discuss how interactive visualizations and personalized tools in particular help readers engage with scientific data. The talk is aimed not only at other data and visual journalists but at researchers keen to extend their media reach.
Throughout our time working on the Washington Post’s climate desk, we’ve often found that scientists produce vast amounts of unique data but are unsure how to go about sharing it with the wider public beyond a press release and perhaps some basic charts. We’ll draw on our experiences and learnings to discuss the following questions:
* How do you personalize data with visualizations?
* What do we think our readers want from climate visuals? What worked, what didn't?
* What makes a piece of scientific research appealing or suitable for data visualization?
* Where might science communication be headed as scientists and journalists become increasingly data- and visually literate?