[MUSIC] Designing for emotion is a balancing act. Depending on the purpose and context, either too much or too little emphasis on emotion can be tricky. For a more exploratory or analytical visualization, including emotionally charged content can be problematic. There are several techniques for heightening the emotional quality of a visualization, ranging from the structuring of the story, to color, to word choices. Let's face it, you're probably not going to get that much emotion from a bar chart. We are going to consider a few examples of techniques you can use to weave your emotion into your data story. After this lesson, you will be able to explain techniques for heightening the emotional quality of a visualization, and discuss the balancing act of designing for emotions in data storytelling. >> Hello, and welcome back. In this lesson, we will consider techniques to design for emotions and data storytelling. Let's start with thinking about the structure of a story. Now, one of my first jobs was as a freelance science journalist and it taught me many lessons about connecting with audiences, some of which I'd like to share with you now. One of the most important is that, when you are conveying information to a general audience, even if it's scientific or technical, and especially if it's scientific or technical, try to make it relatable to the viewer. That is, try to help viewers personally connect to the material you are presenting by allowing them to identify with something within the story. One of the best approaches to do that is to find a specific story of a person who exemplifies the larger narrative rather than starting with a lot of general facts and figures. The rule of thumb could be put this way. Use a particular to illuminate the general. Consider this example. Which of the following approaches will have a better chance of connecting and resonating with a general audience? Option A, home foreclosures have increased 20% in the US this year. Or something more along the lines of this, option B. Allison is worried about losing her home, and she's not alone. So far this year, foreclosures have jumped 20% in the US. By introducing Allison as a representative of the larger trend, the data is put in a more relatable form. In this case, the larger narrative can be partly told through Allison's direct experience and perspective. Let's look at this example as one basic version of the story article with the 3 Cs. Context, Allison is worried about losing her home. Challenge, she's not alone. There's an economic downturn and a national wave of foreclosures. Conclusion, Allison was fortunate in her case to renegotiate her mortgage with the bank. Now, this type of approach, personify the Allison's character and her story against the backdrop of the larger story, if replicated, could help slow the foreclosure rate. By telling Allison's story, you can help people identify and connect to the larger narrative in way that just talking about percentages and policies alone could never accomplish. We will see examples of visualizations that show the individual against the backdrop of a larger data set. However, this approach can sometimes be a challenge for data storytelling. Why do you think this would be the case? Well, many data sets anonymize the individual data. If that's the case, think about other ways to make the big picture more concrete and relatable by finding particular details in the data that can help connect the abstract to the more concrete in the viewer's experience. Now, the human element does not only have to be in the story itself, the presenter can also help put a human face on the data, and encourage emotional connection to it without distorting the data in any way. One very famous example of this is Hans Rosling and his presentation with primarily a bubble chart visualization of differences in global per capita, income, and life expectancy. If you haven't seen it already, it's available in the resources section and I recommend that you pause now to look at it before continuing with the rest of this lesson. Now for many people, global health data and statistics would be a recipe for a boring presentation. However, in this case, Rosling is a primary point of connection that helps us to really enter into his data story. Rosling's passion for the subject and skill as a presenter gins up the emotional level. But that's not all. His interactions with the chart, which almost seem to have a life of its own, along with the movement and colors, further enhanced the effect. Now, not everyone can be a Hans Rosling, but it can be useful to see what he does to make his case with data. He tells the story about the changes in life expectancy and income with a great deal of passion. But that passion is leavened by weaving in hard data. If either the passion or the data was missing, the presentation would not work half as well. When you are working on your stories, you might ask yourself, do you care about the subject yourself? And if not, what would get you to care about it? The answer to that question could help propel the direction and emotional impact of your story and your project, not only for yourself, but for others as well. Other factors to consider for enhancing emotional resonance include how to create some tension or uncertainty in your data stories. Challenges, tension, and uncertainty are powerful ways to draw us into a story and to help maintain our level of interest. There's a reason why things like spoiler alerts for films and television exist. We want to see how things unfold without always knowing everything at the beginning. After all, how boring would that be? Well, the same is true for data stories. An unexpected conclusion can have a powerful impact on the audience's perception of your story. That said, it may be that there are no surprising findings in your data. Well, that's okay. It might take a bit more work, but you can always look for ways to keep your audience engaged by the way you bring them to the final conclusion. Well, that wraps up our look at structural elements and emotion in story. Our next lesson, we will consider how color, language, and other design elements can also be used to modulate emotions. Thanks for listening, and see you next time.
