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Wherry Lecture: Amanda Cox

Department of Statistics
April 1, 2014
All Day
209 W. Eighteenth Ave. (EA), Room 170

Title

Data Visualization at The New York Times

Speaker

Amanda Cox, The New York Times graphics department

Abstract

The New York Times graphics department makes maps, charts and diagrams for the newspaper and its website.

I'll discuss what news graphics have taught me about data visualization (distributions are more interesting than averages, a lot of good songs have backup singers, the annotation layer is very important), and some of the things I'm still trying to figure out (how we treat uncertainty, how to make charts that play well with words).

I'll illustrate ideas you could learn in middle-school psychology (we're more successful when we make connections to things people already know; when you have a hammer, many problems look like nails) and leave plenty of time for a conversation about fancier ideas.