Page 70 - Invited Paper Session (IPS) - Volume 2

IPS179 Per Nymand-Andersen
long-held reputation for providing independent, factual and credible
explanatory statistics of high quality.
Visualisation is a powerful digital tool that expands the statistical narrative.
There are ample digital tools and freeware available to assist statisticians in
presenting visual narratives such as interactive graphs, web-based videos,
dynamic tables, infographics, touch-screen gadgets and smart mobile
technology, which allow users to “slice and dice” relevant statistics and swiftly
republish visualisations – without the need to find the data in large databases
and/or even spend time to reproduce tables.

There is a growing gap between the way statistics are presented to
society and the way the increasing digital community behaves, collects
and reuses statistics.
One simple and effective digital Research by the 3M Corporation in 2001
tool to share and cite statistics is indicates that our brain can process visual
the use of widgets, which can be information 60,000 times faster than text
easily incorporated into websites. and that, on average, humans are more
In particular, the “embed” function skilful at processing visuals, as
allows professional users to reuse approximately 90% of all information that
visualisation in other digital comes to the brain is in that form (Hyerle,
2000). It has been suggested that human
media/blogs and to write a short eyes can register 36,000 visual messages
accompanying text. per hour (Jensen, 2008), while earlier

Nevertheless, the concept of research suggests that it takes
visualisation requires manifold approximately 0.25 seconds for the human
skills and also collaboration brain to process and attach meaning to a
between statisticians and other symbol. In contrast, it takes the human eye
professionals such as designers approximately six seconds (a factor of 24)
to read 20 to 25 words (Thorpe, Fize, and
and communications specialists. Marlot, 1996). While the research itself
The statistician understands the can be disputed, it nevertheless seems to
narrative, the designer clarifies and support the idea that statistics presented in
creates the visual, and the a visual format are easier to comprehend
communications specialist and retain than data shown as tables,
provides support in translating numbers and words.

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