Welcome
# T C 1 8 You Are Not Your Audience Becoming a More Inclusive Storyteller Jenny Richards Product Marketing Manager Tableau
Agenda What is inclusive storytelling, and why should we care? Tips in 3 areas that emphasize inclusivity Gender Race Accessibility Practice design for your audience, not for yourself.
Storytelling
Tableau Conference is all about adding new tools to your storytelling toolkit.
This session is less about the tools and more about the audience, and how you can put yourself in their shoes.
Image of women title slide gender Gender
I ve built these too.
What do they have in common?
What do they have in common?
Let s get this straight There s nothing wrong with pink or blue. Photo by Olivier Duflo But when those colors are applied to gender, they tend to reinforce stereotypes.
If the story s about gender try a different palette.
or change the perspective.
On designing charts with gender-based data Don t just default to pink and blue, especially if your work has a cohesive color palette. Look at others whose work you respect and follow their lead.
Race
Pictograms Newspaper Rock, near Canyonlands National Park, UT Photo by Jirka Matousek
Pictograms convey meaning through pictorial resemblance to a physical object
Otto Neurath Philosopher Sociologist Political Economist Marie Neurath Gerd Arntz Isotype method of showing social, technological, biological and historical connections in pictorial form
I ve used these too.
Vienna Circle Group of philosophers and scientists drawn from the natural and social sciences, logic and mathematics who met regularly from 1924 to 1936 at the University of Vienna. Committed to the ideals of the Enlightenment!
Science of the day differentiated race by cranial measurements and used skin color as shorthand in the descriptions. This norm was reflected in Neurath s work.
Despite their phenomenal contribution to the field of visual communication and the fact that the Neuraths and Arntz fled Nazi persecution, their work is not looked upon kindly.
What s the lesson here? The pictograms and isotypes aren t the problem. It s the use of skin tone as a stereotype that s the issue. So don t use skin tone colors (or flags or stereotypes) to represent race.
For those of you who think this problem is one of the past, let me show you something from my lifetime.
Let s see some examples of folks talking about race
Even With Affirmative Action, Blacks and Hispanics Are More Underrepresented at Top Colleges Than 35 Years Ago NYTimes (ASHKENAS, PARK, and PEARCE), Aug 2017
Extensive Data Shows Punishing Reach of Racism for Black Boys NYTimes, (BADGER, MILLER, PEARCE, and QUEALY) Mar 2018
If you re black Tampa Bay Times (BEDI and HUMBURG), April 2017
And one last note on color Colors mean different things to different cultures. If you re telling a data story, take the time to understand how your color selections might influence your audience s view of your work. Don t assume because it s not related to your story that it doesn t matter. It might to someone else.
Accessibility
What are the first two colors of a Tableau viz?
Stoplight dashboards and financial charts It s common to see green/yellow/red on dashboards because those colors are often shorthand for On track/at Risk/Behind Schedule. Someone who has a color vision deficiency might see it as any one of these Red-Blind/Protanopia Blue-Blind/Tritanopia Monochromacy/Achromatopsia
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog
But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east and Juliet is the sun! Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, Who is already sick and pale with grief That thou her maid art far more fair than she. Be not her maid, since she is envious; Her vestal livery is but sick and green, And none but fools do wear it. Cast it off. It is my lady, O, it is my love! O that she knew she were! She speaks, yet she says nothing; what of that? Her eye discourses, I will answer it. I am too bold: 'tis not to me she speaks. Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, Having some business, do entreat her eyes To twinkle in their spheres till they return. What if her eyes were there, they in her head? The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars, As daylight doth a lamp. Her eyes in heaven Would through the airy region stream so bright That birds would sing and think it were not night. See how she leans her cheek upon her hand O that I were a glove upon that hand, That I might touch that cheek!
But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east and Juliet is the sun! Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, Who is already sick and pale with grief That thou her maid art far more fair than she. Be not her maid, since she is envious; Her vestal livery is but sick and green, And none but fools do wear it. Cast it off. It is my lady, O, it is my love! O that she knew she were! She speaks, yet she says nothing; what of that? Her eye discourses, I will answer it. I am too bold: 'tis not to me she speaks. Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, Having some business, do entreat her eyes To twinkle in their spheres till they return. What if her eyes were there, they in her head? The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars, As daylight doth a lamp. Her eyes in heaven Would through the airy region stream so bright That birds would sing and think it were not night. See how she leans her cheek upon her hand O that I were a glove upon that hand, That I might touch that cheek!
But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east and Juliet is the sun! Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, Who is already sick and pale with grief That thou her maid art far more fair than she. Be not her maid, since she is envious; Her vestal livery is but sick and green, And none but fools do wear it. Cast it off. It is my lady, O, it is my love! O that she knew she were! She speaks, yet she says nothing; what of that? Her eye discourses, I will answer it. I am too bold: 'tis not to me she speaks. Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, Having some business, do entreat her eyes To twinkle in their spheres till they return. What if her eyes were there, they in her head? The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars, As daylight doth a lamp. Her eyes in heaven Would through the airy region stream so bright That birds would sing and think it were not night. See how she leans her cheek upon her hand O that I were a glove upon that hand, That I might touch that cheek!
Build for your audience, not for yourself Accessibility design includes more than just good color selection. Think about layout, tool tips, keyboard-only users, and screen readers. You can use Tableau to create accessible vizzes! Vizzes can be published and embedded in a web page that conforms to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Support for keyboard navigation Programmatic context for assistive technologies (using ARIA roles) Text equivalent for charts and visualizations Ability to conform with contrast standards
Finally
Remember: You are not your audience The design of your chart should support the story you re trying to tell for the audience. Who are they and what s their background? Check for colors that telegraph a different story than what you d planned. Gender and race are obvious, but different cultures read colors differently. Will the audience have difficulty with your story because you designed it for your eyes and your abilities? Are your fonts too small? Have you put too much on one page? Is your work easy to read? What are you trying to say? Be intentional about everything you put on the page, because your readers will assume everything you do is on purpose.
All data stories used in this deck, along with additional reference and research information can be found at this URL.
#TC18 Thank you! jrichards@tableau.com
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