Episode #251: Sheila Pontis and Michael Babwahsingh

Summary

In the first episode of The PolicyViz Podcast of 2024, I speak with Sheila Pontis and Michael Babwahsingh, the authors of the new book, Information Design Unbound. The book, which contains over 400 images and input from more than 65 contributors, is designed to serve both students and professionals through exercises and activities. It specifically addresses how to teach design and information design to students without a traditional design background and explores different approaches to the subject based on students’ fields of study, as well as various team structures within the profession.

Topics Discussed

• Origins of “Information Design Unbound”: Sheila and Michael discuss their drive to pen a comprehensive guide in the field of information design, recognizing the gap in educational resources for this burgeoning discipline.
• Collaborative Challenges: The duo sheds light on the difficulties they faced while integrating varied viewpoints and adhering to publishing constraints since their partnership with Bloomsbury commenced in 2016.
• Educational Resource: With over 400 images and contributions from more than 65 experts, the book is a treasure trove of knowledge, featuring exercises and activities aimed at both new learners and seasoned practitioners.
• Design Education for Non-Designers: The authors emphasize the importance of teaching design and information design to students without a formal background in design, tailoring approaches based on the students’ areas of study.
• Professional Team Dynamics: An exploration into the various team structures within the field of information design and how they collaborate to address complex issues.
• Evolution of Design Thinking: A shift from creating traditional design artifacts to solving complex systems and wicked problems is discussed, marking the advancement in design methodologies.
• Cultural Sensitivity in Design: The conversation highlights the crucial role of context, audience, and cultural differences when employing icons and other design elements, acknowledging that design solutions are not universally applicable.

Resources

Guest Bios

Sheila Pontis, PhD is an information designer, researcher, educator, and partner at Sense Information Design. With more than 20 years in higher education, her courses and research blend information design, cognitive science, and field research with creative thinking to help people reconnect with their imagination, envision new realities, and feel empowered to lead change — in their own lives and in society. 

Before joining Northeastern University, she taught at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University, Parsons School of Design, Rutgers University, and University College London, among other universities. Her research has been published in numerous peer-reviewed journals and presented at multiple conferences. 

She is the author of Making Sense of Field Research: A Practical Guide for Information Designers (Routledge, 2018) and coauthor of Communicating Knowledge Visually: Will Burtin’s Scientific Approach to Information Design with R. Roger Remington (RIT Press, 2021). Sheila has a degree in Graphic Design from the University of Buenos Aires, Postgraduate and MPhil degrees from the University of Barcelona, and a PhD from the University of the Arts London.

Michael Babwahsingh is an information designer and partner at Sense Information Design. His work focuses on information design in the broadest sense: helping people make sense of their world in order to solve problems, uncover opportunities, and achieve their goals. His nearly 25 years of experience span strategic design and innovation, visual facilitation, branding, and communication design for a variety of clients in health care, life sciences, finance, technology, and social good.

He has taught design thinking at NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and information visualization at Parsons School of Design.

Michael received a BA in Art and Graphic Design from Moravian College.

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Transcript

00:00 – 00:17

Welcome back to the PolicyViz Podcast. I’m your host, Jon Schwabish. Happy New Year,

00:17 – 00:22

everybody. I hope you had a lovely holiday season. Maybe get a little rest and relaxation

00:22 – 00:29

in there. I basically spent two weeks at home working very little, spending a bunch of time

00:29 – 00:34

with my kids and my wife, saw a couple of Washington Capitals games, got a behind the

00:34 – 00:39

scenes tour of Nationals Park here in DC. Just a very nice, relaxing time. Read four

00:39 – 00:45

whole books. That was really nice. Just sitting down, reading, drinking some tea, having some

00:45 – 00:51

cocktails in the evening. A very nice, relaxing holiday. And I hope you were similarly having

00:51 – 00:57

a restful holiday. But now we’re back in 2024, and I’ve got a whole great new lineup of guests

00:57 – 01:02

for you coming up over the next several months. And we’re going to kick off the year with the

01:02 – 01:07

authors of the new book, Information Design Unbound. If you’re not watching this on YouTube,

01:07 – 01:11

you can’t see that I’m holding up the book. Information Design Unbound, Key Concepts and

01:11 – 01:18

Skills for Making Sense in a Changing World by Sheila Pontes and Michael Babwahsingh. Two folks

01:18 – 01:24

I have known for quite a long time. Really admired their work, especially Sheila’s previous book,

01:24 – 01:29

where it’s one of the few books that focuses on qualitative data visualization. So I really like

01:29 – 01:35

that. But this book, they focus on how we as designers and information designers, so might be

01:35 – 01:41

data visualization specialists, you might be a data science expert, how we can do a better job

01:41 – 01:47

of communicating our data. But the focus is more on the process. And I think over the last few

01:47 – 01:53

months of podcast interviews, you’ve seen more discussion on this show about the process of

01:53 – 01:59

creating and producing effective data visualizations. I talked to Vidya Settler and Bridget Cogley a few

01:59 – 02:03

months ago about their book, Functional Aesthetics. I talked to Jen Christensen about her book,

02:03 – 02:08

Designing Science Graphics. Both of those books, including this book by Sheila and Michael,

02:08 – 02:14

are focusing on this process of creating effective visualizations. So if you are in the field of

02:14 – 02:19

information design, data visualization, data science, what you’re going to learn from our

02:19 – 02:26

conversation here is how you can build an effective team and work your process through that

02:26 – 02:30

team to create more effective visualizations. So we talk about different models for setting up that

02:30 – 02:35

team and who might be a part of that team. We also talk about different cultures and different

02:35 – 02:40

expectations that different cultures have about your visualizations and how you should think about

02:40 – 02:45

that. And we also talk about research and how if you are a designer, maybe you don’t have a background

02:45 – 02:49

in research, what you need to be thinking about when it comes to research. And similarly,

02:49 – 02:54

if you’re a researcher, what you need to be aware of when it comes to the communication,

02:54 – 02:58

when it comes to the design side of your communication efforts. So it’s a really

02:58 – 03:03

interesting discussion. I really do highly recommend the book. It’s really just a lovely

03:03 – 03:07

book. It’s nice and big and great images and great writing. And it’s got all these great

03:07 – 03:12

examples and worksheets in it that I think will be beneficial to those of you who are working in

03:12 – 03:18

this area. So again, Happy New Year. Welcome back to the PolicyViz Podcast. I hope you enjoy

03:18 – 03:25

this kickoff episodes in 2024. My conversation with Sheila Pontis and Michael Babwahsingh starts right now.

03:28 – 03:33

Michael, Sheila, hello. Good to see you. Kind of in person, virtually as close as we can get

03:33 – 03:38

in person these days. Great to see you. Thanks for joining me on the show. Thank you for inviting us.

03:38 – 03:43

Thanks, John. I’m very excited to have you. For those who are watching the video, I’ve got the

03:43 – 03:50

beautiful Information Design Unbound book right here. It’s lovely. I mean, it’s lovely in a

03:50 – 03:56

variety of ways. I mean, aside from just content, but just like the art is lovely. And we’re going

03:56 – 04:01

to get into all the good stuff about this book. Well, not all of it because then people need to

04:01 – 04:05

read it. And this podcast episode would be like 700 hours long. So we won’t bother with that.

04:06 – 04:10

So I thought we would start with just basic introductions, who you are, where you’re coming

04:10 – 04:14

from, and then we can dive into the content here. So maybe Sheila, we’ll start with you.

04:15 – 04:21

Perfect. Thank you, John. So yes, my name is Sheila Pontis. I’ve been an information designer,

04:21 – 04:26

researcher, and educator for probably more than 20 years now. I have a lot of experience in

04:26 – 04:32

higher education. I live in four different countries, taught in different countries,

04:32 – 04:36

designed in four different countries. So I have kind of a very global view of the field.

04:38 – 04:44

I recently joined Northeastern University as the Director of the Information Design and Data

04:44 – 04:52

Visualization Graduate Programs. So I started in January. I have also wrote other books about

04:52 – 04:57

information design, research. Yeah, that’s me. Yeah, for sure. And I should say before we get

04:57 – 05:02

to Michael, your field research book is one of the ones that I share with people,

05:02 – 05:08

Qualitative Data Vis, just doing research, just a really nice, great book to get out there and do

05:08 – 05:15

research. Okay. Michael. So my name is Michael Babwahsingh. I’m an information designer. I’ve

05:15 – 05:24

been working for close to 25 years on a range of projects ranging from strategy to branding to

05:25 – 05:30

communication design and just straight ahead information design. I’m a partner at Sense

05:30 – 05:36

Information Design with Sheila, and that’s been the focus of my attention for the past 10 years.

05:38 – 05:44

And yeah, I try to be active in the community and follow what’s going on as much as I can and

05:46 – 05:50

hope to make more contributions. We’re also, Sheila and I, should I, we are co-organizers

05:50 – 05:57

of the Information Design NYC Meetup, which has been dormant for a while, but we do try to

05:58 – 06:04

use that to engage with the community in the area and just keep the word alive,

06:04 – 06:10

keep activity going around information design. Right. So is that how you two met? I’m curious

06:10 – 06:16

about how you two got together to co-author this particular book. How far in time you want to go?

06:17 – 06:26

As far as you need. Yeah. I mean, we got together a while before the book came into the equation.

06:26 – 06:30

So yeah. Well, so what were the conversations like to say,

06:31 – 06:36

this book is needed and we are the right people to write it and we should write it together?

06:37 – 06:42

So I can start if you want, Mike, and then you can change. So having been in education for a

06:42 – 06:48

long time and having taught information design to different groups of students, I always found

06:49 – 06:56

the need to have one book that contains all the key concepts to information design. I always

06:56 – 07:01

find myself like grabbing a chapter from here, an article from there, a link, a video. I couldn’t

07:01 – 07:08

find one book that had it all, at least from an introduction point of view. I couldn’t find

07:08 – 07:15

exercises that were at different levels or complexities. So when we came across this

07:15 – 07:21

project to me, that was an opportunity to say, it would be cool to have a textbook with everything

07:21 – 07:26

there, at least foundationally speaking, and then you can build on, but at least you have

07:26 – 07:33

something that contains all the key concepts. Yeah. I think just to build on that, I think

07:33 – 07:38

we both had like different experiences and different angles that sort of converge. So

07:38 – 07:44

Sheila’s coming more from education and academia, and I’m coming squarely from practice. And from

07:44 – 07:51

my experience, what I was seeing was that we weren’t showing the bigger picture of information

07:51 – 07:57

design. There’s a lot of confusion. There’s a lot of interchanging of words and concepts in

07:57 – 08:02

information design. Like some people say it’s only data viz. Other people say it’s infographics.

08:02 – 08:07

There’s people doing wayfinding, document design, technical communication. There’s lots of different

08:07 – 08:12

people in that space, but we’re not talking about them holistically. We’re not speaking about the

08:12 – 08:17

field as a whole, and we’re also not thinking about the practitioner. What does it mean to

08:17 – 08:22

be an information designer? What are the skills? What is the knowledge? What’s the mindset you

08:22 – 08:29

need? So all of this foundational stuff, plus the world is changing. So infographics and data viz

08:29 – 08:33

are not enough. So I’ve been seeing that in my own work. I’ve been pushed into more strategic

08:33 – 08:38

projects where a client just needs help figuring something out, and I have to bring that sensibility

08:38 – 08:44

into that problem space and start mapping things out, working with them in a very rough form,

08:44 – 08:50

but using the same approach as I would to an information design project. So how do we start

08:50 – 08:58

talking about this, and how do we start preparing students and young information designers to think

08:58 – 09:04

this way and to start approaching the field from the big picture and not from the atomic level of

09:04 – 09:09

how do you make a chart or a graph, or do you truncate the y-axis? I mean,

09:10 – 09:15

we got to really take a step back. So for me, that was an important thing. How do we

09:15 – 09:22

tackle this big beast, and how do we make sense of our own field for everyone to understand in one

09:22 – 09:28

book? And an interesting convergence of forces here is that we’ve always been thinking about

09:28 – 09:32

this. Shiel and I have always been kind of debating what the hell’s going on in the world, and why

09:32 – 09:40

don’t people understand information design? But on Twitter, I saw a tweet by an editor at Bloomsbury,

09:40 – 09:47

and it was almost like too good to pass up. She tweeted that they were looking for someone to

09:47 – 09:52

write a textbook in information design. So that instantly was the catalyst, like, okay, I got to

09:52 – 10:00

jump on this. So we basically contacted her, and we filled out the forms and kind of a proposal.

10:00 – 10:06

And from there, we signed the contract, and we dove head on into the book development.

10:07 – 10:13

So how long, just out of curiosity, how long did it take you from that point to the end? Because

10:13 – 10:19

there’s a lot going, like, I don’t think, people who haven’t published books before don’t really

10:19 – 10:25

know how much goes into this, particularly a book like this that is so heavy on images and

10:25 – 10:30

illustrations, and there’s cutouts, and there’s worksheets, and there’s exercises, which I want

10:30 – 10:36

to come to in a second. But how long did that go, and what was, we don’t need to go into all of it,

10:36 – 10:41

but what was that process like? Did you lay it all out and say, here’s the package, go for it,

10:41 – 10:49

or what was that process like? Let’s say that, so the first contact with the publisher was in 2016.

10:49 – 10:54

For you to have a reference, I haven’t finished my first book yet. I was just about to finish that.

10:54 – 11:03

Okay. So, and we finished this Information is Unbound in 2023, so it was a substantial amount

11:03 – 11:09

of time. Yeah. But I think to us, now, in retrospect, what was interesting was how much

11:09 – 11:16

we changed our point of view on the field, on teaching, pedagogically speaking, on the exercises,

11:16 – 11:23

on the types of the students we wanted to teach information design from 2016 to now. Yeah. And I

11:23 – 11:31

think probably what took us the longest was to reconcile both views and to work within the

11:31 – 11:39

constraints of the book, because you have a limited space, page count, so there are many

11:39 – 11:45

things, but also something we talked a lot about is I don’t want to write a book on information

11:45 – 11:50

design equivalent of the ones that are out there. I don’t want to repeat the same story, because you

11:50 – 11:57

can buy many books and you have the same. So, kind of defining our point of view and kind of, as Mike

11:57 – 12:04

was saying, telling this more expansive approach of the practice that we saw emerging and emerging,

12:04 – 12:10

and then COVID hit and many things became much more evident, like the role of information design

12:10 – 12:15

was not only focused on infographics anymore, it started to have a much more expansive role. So, I

12:15 – 12:22

think it was a conversion of different things. We can keep talking the last 45 minutes, but

12:23 – 12:30

as you said, the book has more than 400 images, more than 65 contributors, that took a year and

12:30 – 12:40

a half of chasing alone. So, it’s a long process. Yeah. So, I want to ask about this researcher

12:40 – 12:45

teaching side versus the practitioner side, because one of the things that I really appreciate

12:45 – 12:51

about the book, and I would say other newer books that have been out in the last year or so,

12:52 – 12:58

is the inclusion of exercises and activities. And it seems to me that the exercises,

12:58 – 13:05

and they’re for every part, not necessarily every chapter of the book, but

13:05 – 13:12

they are, I sort of read them as really threading that needle, where you could easily envision

13:12 – 13:17

students having to do these exercises as part of their classwork, but also, to Michael, to your

13:17 – 13:22

point, when you’re working with a client, using them in that way. So, I want to maybe start with

13:22 – 13:26

you, Michael, like I don’t really have a specific, I guess if I had a specific question would be,

13:26 – 13:30

have you used these sorts of things in practice? Is that where they came from? Do you use them now

13:30 – 13:37

in practice? So, and maybe, you know, how did you both come together to sort of develop the exercise

13:38 – 13:43

sheets as they were in the book? Yeah, I think my response will be brief, because I think this is

13:44 – 13:51

Sheila’s, this was one of Sheila’s focuses, was to actually really fine-tune those exercises to make

13:51 – 13:58

them as effective as possible, to reflect the concepts, and to really get students and people

13:58 – 14:04

kind of engaged in thinking through what we were talking about in each chapter. But for my

14:04 – 14:12

own experience, I mean, it kind of blends a little bit more into the teaching side, because sometimes

14:12 – 14:18

in workshops, you have to, like when you’re training, when you’re teaching professionals,

14:18 – 14:22

it’s a bit different from teaching students, because there’s a lot of ingrained habits,

14:22 – 14:27

there’s a lot of resistance to things. So, the best example I can give is with visual thinking.

14:27 – 14:34

So, people don’t often, I mean, it is generally loosely associated, like people will make the

14:34 – 14:38

connection with visual thinking and information design, but it’s not explicit. There’s no book,

14:38 – 14:44

like, you know, that actually tells you this is a foundational skill, but when you bring it into

14:44 – 14:50

professional, the professional environment, like, I’m usually the one who has to get up in front of

14:50 – 14:54

a client meeting and write at the whiteboard or draw at the whiteboard. And I always try to

14:55 – 14:58

encourage people to come up and use the marker and just start drawing, because

14:59 – 15:04

that’s, to me, the most effective way to uncover information, to synthesize information,

15:04 – 15:10

to identify gaps. So, when you start teaching that to professionals, you have to fine-tune,

15:10 – 15:15

okay, what are the most basic, basic things they need to know, and how do you make people comfortable

15:15 – 15:20

just doing something unfamiliar and getting really in that groove of, like, okay, this is another

15:20 – 15:26

thing I can use to think about my problems. It’s not just words anymore. I can draw on my notebook,

15:26 – 15:31

I can draw on a whiteboard and a flip chart. It’s just another way of working. So, I think that,

15:31 – 15:36

to me, was the biggest thing. Like, how do you just start easing people into a different way

15:36 – 15:42

of working and build that comfort and confidence so that way they can do the more complicated

15:42 – 15:48

stuff? So, in the visual thinking chapter, it builds from why do you need it, what are the tools,

15:48 – 15:53

what are the basic elements, and then how do you start thinking diagrammatically? And then the

15:53 – 15:58

exercises go into just, like, again, how do you build a toolkit, how do you put the things together,

15:58 – 16:02

and how do you start mapping and visualizing? So, I think that, to me, is my kind of big

16:03 – 16:08

kind of realization is, like, you really need to break it down and take it a step back so that

16:08 – 16:13

people feel confident. Once you build the confidence, then it becomes easier to layer

16:13 – 16:19

on the more advanced things for professionals, for, like, people who’d never do it, who’ve never

16:19 – 16:24

done it before. Right. So, I want to come back to that in a moment, the confidence piece, because

16:25 – 16:34

I think a lot of this is within groups and within teams how people feel their role fits in or

16:34 – 16:39

doesn’t, because there’s a big chapter on that right at the beginning, which I found really

16:39 – 16:42

fascinating. So, I want to come back to that in a second. But, Sheila, I wanted to give you a chance

16:42 – 16:49

to talk about these exercises and how maybe you develop them and, I would guess, continue to use

16:49 – 16:55

them in classes and workshops and that sort of thing. So, I would say probably for the last 10

16:55 – 17:01

years, I have found myself teaching design and information design to not necessarily students

17:01 – 17:05

with a design background or art and design background. Probably, if you only teach, for

17:05 – 17:11

example, Parsons School, most of the students know primary colors. Most of the students are familiar

17:11 – 17:17

with design concepts. But when you teach, I don’t know, more art education, I taught at Princeton

17:17 – 17:23

for six years, the students don’t have a design background at all. So, that made me think that

17:23 – 17:29

maybe readers of this book are not going to be designers necessarily, or it’s just

17:29 – 17:35

students with a design background. So, how can we think about the students that are not

17:35 – 17:41

software dependent, that are not only focusing on the visual side of the practice, but more

17:41 – 17:48

on helping the students develop the mindset and start developing visual awareness of things,

17:48 – 17:54

understanding how they work, understanding their own creative process, developing concepts,

17:54 – 18:01

all the more kind of invisible steps that I usually rush through. The book emphasizes a lot,

18:01 – 18:08

that’s why most of the exercises are analytical, self-reflective, and a part of them are

18:09 – 18:15

like team related, but a few are very individual, in the sense like I need to understand what I’m

18:15 – 18:21

feeling comfortable with first, and then I’m going to be able to engage in more complex type of

18:21 – 18:27

projects. So, it’s kind of also progression on that. It is interesting how students in different fields

18:27 – 18:32

approach information design differently, and I mean that’s not surprising, each field has its own

18:32 – 18:38

intricacies and nuances and jargon and that sort of thing. So, let’s maybe pull these together a

18:38 – 18:43

little bit. So, in the first part of the book, so I’m looking at, for those of you who are following

18:43 – 18:51

along at home, I’m looking at pages 46 and 47. You have these kind of four models of, for lack of a

18:51 – 18:55

better term, teams sort of built out. So, you’ve got the communications team, the experiences team,

18:55 – 19:00

organizations and systems, and there’s lots of different people who are all involved in

19:00 – 19:05

information design, as I think any of us who’s ever done any sort of project with any organization

19:05 – 19:11

knows. And I thought maybe you could just talk a little bit about these different types of team

19:11 – 19:16

structures, and maybe we could do the similar sort of back and forth, because I feel like,

19:17 – 19:20

I mean, you certainly both can, but I think, Michael, maybe you could talk a bit about working

19:20 – 19:25

with clients in these different models, and then Sheila, maybe talk a little bit about how students

19:25 – 19:31

maybe see themselves fitting in these different places, because there are so many different roles

19:31 – 19:36

and they overlap and the lines are sort of fuzzy a little bit. So, maybe we start with the

19:37 – 19:43

organizations in the real world, and then we could turn to students. So, do you want to start a

19:43 – 19:50

little bit? Yeah, sure. So, I think, yeah, because I know in podcast form, the visuals are lost. So,

19:50 – 19:55

I’ll try to explain at least sort of the first piece of this story is really the challenge scale.

19:56 – 20:04

So, we are actually building on previous models of the design orders of the levels of design.

20:04 – 20:12

So, Richard Buchanan, who is very well known in design academia, is like, he’s been very

20:12 – 20:16

influential in establishing a lot of this thinking, but he introduced this idea of four

20:16 – 20:23

orders of design, where you have four levels from communications and artifacts, the most

20:23 – 20:30

concrete and tactical thing at the base, growing into products and services, experiences,

20:30 – 20:37

all the way out into systems. So, the whole idea is that design in general is growing,

20:37 – 20:41

and this is now not news. A lot of people are starting to come on board with this,

20:41 – 20:49

where design was once only artifacts and visual products, things that you could make two-dimensional,

20:49 – 20:54

three-dimensional, but then over time, through forces, economic, business, whatever forces,

20:54 – 21:01

we started getting into services and experiences, where now it’s not just a thing I hold, now it’s

21:01 – 21:07

a place I visit. It’s navigating physical and digital spaces. It’s, you know, service design

21:07 – 21:12

kind of enters into this space where it’s like, what are all the different things that I interact

21:12 – 21:17

with that make this entire experience or service journey possible? And then we’re going outward

21:17 – 21:23

even more into organizations where you have multiple dynamics and organizations. Like,

21:23 – 21:30

how do you think about internal culture, strategy, vision, you know, operations,

21:31 – 21:36

all the way down to, you know, supply chain, logistics, like the entire stack of a company.

21:36 – 21:40

Like, all those things are multiple systems working within a giant system. So, how do we

21:40 – 21:45

start to think about designing within that organizational design? And then the biggest,

21:45 – 21:51

so far, level is systems. So, that’s basically all the things we call wicked problems today.

21:51 – 21:58

So, climate change, you know, health care. So, you have, like, things like COVID, massive problem

21:58 – 22:04

that, you know, we’re still dealing with. You know, education, you know, unemployment,

22:04 – 22:10

isolation of the elderly, you know, loneliness, things that are multi-, like, entangled and

22:10 – 22:15

kind of enmeshed with other things. That is now coming more to the foreground. A lot of people

22:15 – 22:21

are starting to get really concerned and engaging in more climate-related things,

22:21 – 22:27

environmental things, sustainability things. So, the remit of design has grown, but we’re still

22:27 – 22:32

trying to reconcile what are designers doing at each level? How are we supposed to fit in? So,

22:33 – 22:37

winding back to information design, we’re not the saviors. We’re not claiming that

22:37 – 22:42

we’re going to fix everything at each level, but we do have a role to play in helping people

22:42 – 22:49

make sense of things that are unfamiliar or complex. So, from the tiniest icons all the way

22:49 – 22:58

to the most complex system maps, we have, I think, a considerable amount we can contribute

22:58 – 23:04

to bringing structure, bringing order, finding patterns, finding a hidden logic, as David Gibson

23:04 – 23:10

of 212 says. Like, we have to bring that sensibility and those capabilities into the

23:10 – 23:16

mix in order to align different perspectives, whether it’s people working on an icon set or,

23:17 – 23:21

you know, a community-, like, a presentation even, you know, that’s going to be for senior

23:21 – 23:26

leadership. Like, any one of those scenarios, you need to bring that awareness of, like,

23:27 – 23:33

how do people perceive information? What are the cultural dimensions? How do we even organize our

23:33 – 23:38

research, make sense of it? All of the skills that an information designer possesses can cross

23:38 – 23:42

all of those different levels. It’s just you need to modulate what are the specialized skills

23:42 – 23:48

in each one in order to do the work effectively. So, I think when we get down to the models of each

23:48 – 23:53

different type of engagement, we still have this same basic structure. So, you’re always going to

23:53 – 23:58

have the designer and the design team. You’re going to have some type of client and the client

23:58 – 24:05

team, but you’re also going to have this audience, people who are involved in some way, who are the

24:05 – 24:10

intended recipients or audience, or the people who are affected by the intervention to whatever

24:10 – 24:16

you’re doing. So, from the simplest level, we’ve got an audience who’s using a presentation or

24:16 – 24:24

looking at an interactive visualization or data viz on a website, and a stakeholder who might be

24:24 – 24:30

providing the platform in which that’s viewed, or someone else who’s related to that. And that

24:30 – 24:33

same model grows into experiences where you still have the designer, the client,

24:34 – 24:40

someone who’s trying to navigate a website or physical space, and a stakeholder who is somehow

24:40 – 24:44

involved in that. But then when you get into organizations and systems, that’s when you have

24:44 – 24:49

many different stakeholders, many different people in the mix, like different stakeholders

24:49 – 24:55

at an organization, from senior leadership, middle managers, all the way down to frontline workers,

24:55 – 25:00

they may be engaged at different places and points in time within an organizational

25:00 – 25:05

transformation initiative or change initiative. And then at systems level, you have got communities,

25:05 – 25:12

you’ve got nonprofits, you’ve got all different players, government players, all mixing in

25:12 – 25:16

to make sense of a situation. So, it’s a lot, and I could keep rambling, but I think

25:17 – 25:23

having those pictures, at least setting the stage, we hope it helps information designers see like,

25:23 – 25:29

what is the landscape? Who do I need to account for? And then how do I start to think about my

25:29 – 25:35

role? How does it change from one scenario to the other? Yeah, and the other thing,

25:35 – 25:39

and you alluded to this, and I feel like maybe people don’t quite always see this

25:40 – 25:45

when they’re in school, and we’ll come to that piece in a second, but it’s not just external,

25:45 – 25:48

right? It’s not always just external communication. There’s a lot of internal

25:48 – 25:53

communication that needs to happen so that when you are building that structure of your

25:53 – 25:58

organization, that information designers can have a role in helping that process take place

25:58 – 26:04

inside the organization. It doesn’t always have to be out on the website for external viewers can

26:04 – 26:12

have that internal piece. So, Sheila, when you work with your students, or even clients, I guess,

26:12 – 26:17

how do you get them thinking about the broader team rather than just like, I do this thing,

26:17 – 26:23

I do illustrations, and that’s all I do? So, we’re actually happy that you picked this spread

26:23 – 26:31

because we put a lot of work to try to convey the message, and actually pages 46 and 47

26:31 – 26:37

are featuring the blueprint that we are introducing on page 21, which is the blueprint

26:37 – 26:43

and information design project, and I think our goal was to show how the same elements adapt

26:44 – 26:50

as the complexity of a project increases, and how there are many more players and

26:50 – 26:57

interactions become much more complex between these players. So, the way we introduce this

26:57 – 27:04

in education is, first of all, breaking with the idea of the solo designer, that the designer grabs

27:04 – 27:09

the brief from the client, goes into the shower, is hit by an idea, and comes up with an amazing

27:09 – 27:16

solution. So, that kind of a linear model that at least I was taught by more than 20 years ago

27:16 – 27:23

in school is no longer valid, and it doesn’t really represent the current role that information

27:23 – 27:30

designers, and also designers in general, have. So, this is a way of showing the students, okay, you

27:30 – 27:35

are the designer, you’re going to be interacting with all these different players, and the more

27:35 – 27:41

complex the challenge you’re going to be involved in, the more players you’re going to be interacting

27:41 – 27:46

with, and as you mentioned, we talk in the book about when you’re working in really complex

27:46 – 27:53

challenges, organizations, or systems, you are focusing on developing internal sense-making,

27:53 – 27:58

in the sense it’s like achieving an internal understanding within the group, rather than

27:58 – 28:04

creating external communication for someone else, which is related to what you were saying. So,

28:05 – 28:10

helping the students understand the difference between designing something for someone else

28:10 – 28:16

to understand, versus first achieving internal alignment and understanding, in order to decide

28:16 – 28:24

what’s the best way forward. They’re kind of different positions to be in, but having a clear

28:24 – 28:30

distinction between these two roles is important for the students, which don’t even think

28:30 – 28:35

that holistically. Yeah, let me ask, so you said when you were, you know, started out like 20 years

28:35 – 28:43

ago, and it was this linear model, do you think that linear model was correct even then? I mean,

28:43 – 28:48

I think it probably is still correct if you have a very small design studio, and you only focus on

28:48 – 28:56

designing very framed communication artifacts, like an infographic or a report. It does still

28:56 – 29:02

work, I’m not destroying it, but I think it doesn’t represent the full variety of information

29:02 – 29:08

design challenges. That’s why I think it’s better to teach something more expansive, because if it

29:08 – 29:14

is a very simple project, okay, it becomes a much less complex interaction with your client, but

29:14 – 29:21

if the students only see the linear model, they, how do I work when I have teams of clients, or

29:21 – 29:27

when I have many different audiences? Right, yeah. I don’t think back then there was so much

29:28 – 29:33

deep thought about the process, to be honest. Right, yeah, for sure. The science of organizations

29:33 – 29:40

has changed a lot over the last couple decades, for sure. So there is a chapter in the book

29:40 – 29:44

on research, and as a researcher, I kind of went into this chapter with a little like, whoa, whoa,

29:44 – 29:49

whoa, whoa, whoa, what are we going to be trying to teach people in, you know, six pages,

29:49 – 29:57

whatever it is? And I want to hear your thoughts about information designers, and how they can be

29:57 – 30:02

good researchers, responsible researchers. I mean, you know, as an example, you sort of mentioned,

30:02 – 30:06

you know, you can do a quantitative survey, but you can also talk to people, and you can,

30:06 – 30:10

you know, do the qualitative piece, but you know, as we all know, qualitative methods is its own

30:11 – 30:20

field of study. So how do you think about giving people, I guess, these other skills, which I think

30:20 – 30:24

we all kind of think that we all sort of need a broader base of skills, we all need to sort of

30:24 – 30:31

be Renaissance people a little bit, without maybe, maybe the way to frame this is, without giving

30:31 – 30:36

them a false sense that they are now experts in conducting research. And I don’t know,

30:36 – 30:42

Sheila, maybe you want to start with that. I think this chapter was, I would say now,

30:42 – 30:48

retrospectively, a very interesting chapter to write, because as you know, I consider myself

30:48 – 30:57

an expert on the topic, and perhaps Mike is less, less so. So it was kind of a constant dialogue,

30:57 – 31:01

do you understand what I’m trying to say here? And he says, No, you’re going to scare everyone.

31:02 – 31:08

So it was, but they need to know this. No, they don’t need to know this. They only have like three

31:08 – 31:15

days to do it. So it was a constant dialogue, which I think it was the end result that he was

31:15 – 31:23

okay, I would probably would like to add 20 more pages, more things that everyone needs to know.

31:23 – 31:30

I think our main goal was to show research as something accessible, that everyone should do,

31:30 – 31:36

show the value of conducting research, quantitative, quantitative, qualitative,

31:36 – 31:43

for the effectiveness of an information design project, to an extent, removing that view of the

31:43 – 31:48

information designer having all the answers. And they decided in red is the color, this is the

31:48 – 31:56

content, this is the style, and putting that decision making step in the audience and helping

31:57 – 32:02

in this case, the reader understand how much influence or how much having that feedback from

32:02 – 32:08

the audience can make or break a project. We wanted to show diversity on the different

32:09 – 32:14

methods they could use, there’s not only one thing they can do, there’s more than interviews,

32:14 – 32:19

there’s more than a survey, you don’t have to use a survey sometimes, or you don’t have to do

32:20 – 32:24

interviews. So we wanted to show how you can adapt research to your needs.

32:26 – 32:33

And that’s kind of the goal with the chapter. To me, it’s not complex, and it’s very fun,

32:33 – 32:40

but I understand why people can find it scary, can find it like, it’s hard to do. But we did

32:40 – 32:47

want also to convey the rigorous aspect of research. So if you’re going to do it wrong,

32:47 – 32:51

don’t waste your time. Wrong in the sense like there are certain things that to me are non

32:51 – 32:57

negotiable. You have to be an ethical researcher, you need to make sure that you are treating your

32:57 – 33:03

participants with respect, you’re going to keep data confidential. So there are certain things

33:03 – 33:08

that you have to do, even if you are a novice in research, and you haven’t done it before,

33:08 – 33:12

even if you do a survey, do it right. That’s kind of what we were trying to convey.

33:13 – 33:20

Yeah. Yeah, I just wanted to add on to that. I mean, as someone who was also schooled in

33:21 – 33:26

design without research, I mean, most designers, you never hear the word research,

33:26 – 33:29

unless it’s like market research for advertising or marketing. So

33:31 – 33:37

I think the biggest misconception of information design is that principles and visual perception

33:37 – 33:44

research will carry you all the way. Or that your design training and the rules,

33:44 – 33:49

like whatever Vignelli did, Massimo Vignelli, like the legendary designer, or Paul Rand,

33:49 – 33:54

like anyone you learn in school, anyone who’s your hero, is somehow like someone to follow

33:54 – 33:58

and imitate because whatever they did must have worked. And it’s so famous right now,

33:58 – 34:03

it’s so popular. But that’s not true. That’s the biggest myth for designers that because your hero

34:03 – 34:08

did it, or because it’s revered, or somebody put it on a pedestal, doesn’t make it right,

34:08 – 34:14

actually doesn’t make it effective. Even the language we use to describe information design

34:14 – 34:20

is a bit muddy because good information design, you’re not getting at what does that mean? What

34:20 – 34:25

is good information design? Effective information design, meanwhile, has a bit more meat on it,

34:26 – 34:32

because then you can start to qualify and quantify what is effectiveness. Does it align with the

34:32 – 34:39

user’s physical capabilities? Is it culturally sensitive? Is it honest? Is it ethical? Is it

34:39 – 34:46

actually solving a problem? Is it using sound information and credible sources? Now we’re

34:46 – 34:51

starting to get somewhere. Then when we start talking about effectiveness, we can start measuring,

34:51 – 34:55

we can start evaluating those dimensions of effectiveness. So this is a ton of work for

34:55 – 34:57

designers. I mean, I just want to go into Figma.

34:58 – 35:02

And whip up something in an interface like or illustrator and kind of obsess over the curves

35:02 – 35:07

of the thing. No, if you want effective information design, you have to do the work to evaluate

35:07 – 35:13

effectiveness. You can’t just copy your hero and say, well, it’s effective. Or I saw this in the

35:13 – 35:17

South China Morning Post. I really like that graphic. I’m going to do that because it’s in

35:17 – 35:23

that newspaper and it’s cool. No. Or won an award. No. Actually, that’s a side topic. And I don’t

35:23 – 35:31

want to get canceled here, but I think awards also do a lot to distort what is good versus

35:31 – 35:35

effective. Because something wins an award does not mean it’s effective. It just means the judges

35:35 – 35:40

agreed it should win an award. So I’ll park it there. But I think, yeah, from a practitioner

35:40 – 35:46

side, like our message was that if you start early on in your career thinking this way,

35:46 – 35:51

thinking about plugging in research and not letting a client or the constraints prevent

35:51 – 35:56

you from doing research, then I think you can start building an awareness of effectiveness and

35:56 – 36:02

start making that a habit as opposed to an afterthought. Yeah. And also just to add to that,

36:02 – 36:07

I think thinking that research, you don’t have to do it at the end because sometimes the designers

36:07 – 36:14

do everything. They have the final artifact. Let’s go and test it. Research is since you have your

36:14 – 36:20

brief or you are creating your brief, let’s start with research then. And then every step in the

36:20 – 36:25

process, that would save you time and money towards the end. Kind of also conveying that

36:25 – 36:30

message. Well, I think it’s also similar for researchers in general that, and this has been

36:30 – 36:37

a model that’s been discussed for a long time, that you don’t just do the data analysis and then you

36:37 – 36:42

write and then you make the graphs and then you’re like, it’s all iterative, right? I mean,

36:42 – 36:46

obviously qualitative research is a little bit different, but in the quantitative world,

36:47 – 36:52

you don’t just do one step at a time because you don’t end up being able to make a thorough

36:52 – 36:58

argument. On the awards thing, I’ve definitely talked about that in the past. It’s funny,

36:58 – 37:04

Michael, your complaint about it. My complaint about awards has actually been on the other end

37:04 – 37:10

of things that my, and it is what it is, right? Everybody likes awards. It’s fine. It’s judging

37:10 – 37:15

data visualizations, like judging movies, right? A lot of it is subjective, but my complaint has

37:15 – 37:21

always been that data visualization sits on a bedrock of data. And having done these contests

37:21 – 37:28

and been a judge, I’ve never sat down and explored the raw data to make sure the person, the designer

37:28 – 37:33

has treated that correctly and done the right analysis. I don’t know if they’ve dropped some

37:33 – 37:37

observations because they weren’t conducive to the design that they had in mind. So, I think

37:37 – 37:42

there’s a lot of issues with awards that, that’s a whole other episode and I’m sure I could get

37:42 – 37:51

about 500 people on this show to just argue that. So, I wanted to sort of wrap us up. You both have

37:51 – 37:58

mentioned over the course of this discussion, ethical research, different cultures, different,

37:58 – 38:01

Sheila, you started like living in different places, started this with living in different

38:01 – 38:06

places around the world and being culturally responsible. And that is not the only thread,

38:06 – 38:11

but it’s certainly one of the threads that I saw through the whole book. And it has a

38:11 – 38:16

specific chapter, but it doesn’t just appear in that, in that one chapter. And again, I don’t

38:16 – 38:22

really have a specific question. I guess it’s, it’s, you know, what have your experiences been

38:23 – 38:28

designing for creating projects in different cultures? Maybe Sheila, a little bit more on

38:28 – 38:34

teaching students in different places in different cultures. I mean, for me, the one I find really

38:34 – 38:41

interesting and I’ll be honest, I don’t know enough about is just the difference in information

38:41 – 38:47

design and more of the Eastern cultures where the Kanji run vertically versus in Western cultures,

38:47 – 38:52

where it’s more, you know, left to right. But I’m just curious about your experience working in

38:52 – 38:58

different cultures and maybe some of the, you know, big things that you’ve run into, right or wrong,

38:59 – 39:02

that you’ve, that you’ve seen. So, I don’t know, Michael, if you want to, if you want to start.

39:03 – 39:08

Yeah, I mean, actually, I kind of wish I had more cultural projects. I mean, that I think would have

39:08 – 39:17

been a bit more, I could provide more on that, on that front. I think my angle, I think my concern

39:17 – 39:23

has always been in my practice and in just writing the book is that there’s no representation.

39:23 – 39:29

You just don’t see the work. Like, there’s a lot of discussion about how to be culturally sensitive

39:30 – 39:33

and even more so in the past few years. It’s like, you have to mind your language,

39:34 – 39:38

you know, the color and of course, you know, your work with the do no harm guide. Like,

39:38 – 39:44

there’s a lot more interest in doing that. But I think fundamentally, we make a lot of assumptions

39:44 – 39:48

and I know I’ve made a lot of assumptions in my own work in the past, like, because the client

39:49 – 39:53

has been driving the train. It’s like, this is something I want, so you have to do this by my

39:53 – 40:01

criteria. But it’s hard because you kind of hope for this average, we kind of dream of this average

40:01 – 40:07

audience, this kind of middle band of people that, okay, everyone will kind of fit in that. Like, no,

40:07 – 40:12

no, it actually doesn’t happen. I mean, one thing I can think of is like with icons. I keep coming

40:12 – 40:17

back to that. It’s like, I’ve worked on icon projects where the assumption is that if you

40:17 – 40:23

get a good designer, they’ll make something universal. They know enough, quote unquote,

40:23 – 40:29

they know enough about this to make something understandable to everyone. And of course,

40:29 – 40:34

we know that’s not true. There’s always room for misinterpretation. The only reason why we point

40:34 – 40:41

to things that are universal, like, quote unquote, universal, like airport signs or transit, you know,

40:42 – 40:47

any public information design, it’s only that way because of convention, because it was

40:47 – 40:51

standardized, and it was used and reused, and the meaning was reinforced over time,

40:51 – 40:58

like now decades, in fact. So there’s a lot of equity built into symbols over time. Nothing is

40:58 – 41:03

universal. It’s all learned. So for someone to tell me like, okay, we’re doing a whole new line

41:03 – 41:09

of products, or we need interface icons, and we need to make them understandable to as many people

41:09 – 41:13

as possible, like, well, it has to be small, which means you have to abstract the shapes.

41:13 – 41:18

You can’t add as much detail. So now we have a problem. Like, you can’t just put all of that

41:18 – 41:23

work on the icons. You need to really kind of dig into the research and understand, well, what are

41:23 – 41:28

the concepts? How do you represent those concepts? What do they look like in different cultures,

41:28 – 41:34

the audience that you’re looking at? So I know that I’ve failed miserably in past icon projects,

41:34 – 41:39

and I just don’t show those in my portfolio, but I think that’s been my lesson, is like,

41:39 – 41:44

when you think about things that are supposed to be universal, you really can’t do that. You have

41:44 – 41:49

to supplement with text. You have to provide other cues, contextual cues to help people

41:49 – 41:55

understand, and it’s all a case-by-case scenario. Like, on a case-by-case basis, you have to look at

41:55 – 41:59

who’s looking at it, where are they looking at it, how big or small is the thing,

41:59 – 42:04

what are the other production factors that influence the thing? So that’s sort of my

42:04 – 42:10

takeaway, is like, there’s nothing as universal, but you really need to kind of do a 360 view

42:10 – 42:15

around the entire project and think as deeply as you can about the audience and their context,

42:15 – 42:19

and then the messages, and then the variability in how those messages can be represented,

42:19 – 42:24

and then just find that interface where, okay, I have something, let me test it,

42:24 – 42:29

let me evaluate it, but then also provide a backup so the icon isn’t doing all the work.

42:29 – 42:36

Or whatever that visual representation is. Right. Sheila, so again, you’ve had sort of both

42:36 – 42:41

worlds here, the design side and the private sector sort of side, and then the instruction

42:41 – 42:48

side. So I’ll leave it up to you where you want to focus on this piece of thinking about culture.

42:49 – 42:55

I think having left my hometown like so early, to be honest, when I left, I was like 20,

42:56 – 43:03

and I was so naive. I thought every country functioned in the same way. From having,

43:03 – 43:10

I don’t know, drinking coffee in the same way, I was naive. So I think my first realisation when

43:10 – 43:18

I got to Europe was starting to realise that daily things were different, even if you spoke the same

43:18 – 43:25

language, because from Argentina to Spain, we were meant to speak both Spanish. I promise you,

43:25 – 43:29

I couldn’t understand what they were saying to me for a week. So I think that was my first

43:29 – 43:35

realisation that, okay, there are some differences here. And then, to be honest, I got into research

43:36 – 43:43

pretty fast. So I think because I’m a qualitative researcher, I’m a better listener than a speaker.

43:43 – 43:50

So by doing this work, I started to realise that even within the same country, there are many

43:50 – 43:58

different sub-communities with their own nuances and their own specifics. And that’s something like

43:58 – 44:05

I do teach my students that I don’t believe in universal design. I think it’s really rare that

44:05 – 44:09

you can design something that applies to everything, and it’s going to be understood by

44:09 – 44:15

everyone. If you really did the work, and you do your proper research and your proper homework,

44:15 – 44:19

you’re going to realise that you need to tweak things, depending on who is going to be looking

44:19 – 44:25

at that, depending on the context of use, where the thing is going to be used, what time. There are

44:25 – 44:32

many things that need to be considered. But I don’t know, I also find it super interesting,

44:32 – 44:37

I think it’s an interesting challenge when you have a new project. Who is your audience?

44:37 – 44:42

How can you design something that could be adaptable to the different set of needs that you

44:42 – 44:48

identify? That’s why to me, it’s very hard to conceive the practice without research. I’m very

44:48 – 44:53

boring in that sense, because I put it everywhere. To me, talking with people is essential,

44:53 – 44:59

because to me, it’s a very humbling experience. It makes me realise how little I knew about the

44:59 – 45:06

project from, I don’t know, the significance of the colour, shape, the content, the things that

45:06 – 45:11

they understand versus the things they don’t. I don’t know, there are many different specific things.

45:12 – 45:12

Yeah.

45:12 – 45:18

So I think it’s hard to design for another culture, for another country, and even within

45:18 – 45:22

different industries in the same country. It’s really hard, because the language is different,

45:22 – 45:27

terminology is different. I don’t know, that’s also, I think, it’s an old school thing.

45:27 – 45:34

Yeah. And I guess, obviously, it depends on perspective, but I just find it is a challenge,

45:34 – 45:39

but it’s a fun challenge, and it’s a good challenge. Diversity is good, right? From

45:39 – 45:44

a challenge perspective, I think it’s good to sort of break out and try to understand

45:44 – 45:47

these different perspectives. Absolutely, absolutely. And I think

45:47 – 45:54

the lack of research, to an extent, is removing that diversity, because it’s the assumption that

45:54 – 45:59

everything is the same. And I think, no, let’s try to understand the specific things of this

45:59 – 46:06

diversity and try to design for the specific needs of the different groups, of the different,

46:06 – 46:09

I don’t know, needs. Yeah, for sure.

46:10 – 46:15

So, thank you both so much. So, the book is available wherever folks get their books,

46:16 – 46:20

your local bookseller, Amazon, I’m sure it’s at the Bloomsbury site.

46:22 – 46:26

Now that social media is in a very strange place, particularly in the data viz world,

46:26 – 46:30

where can folks find you? Mike, where can folks find you to connect?

46:31 – 46:41

Um, good question. Because I’m not as active on Twitter, I’m only reappearing to promote the book,

46:41 – 46:51

honestly. I don’t really point people there. And I am on LinkedIn, but I’m very cautious of

46:51 – 46:57

connections and stuff like that. So, I would say, I mean, I’m an old fashioned email person. So,

46:57 – 47:05

if I get an email, Michael at SenseInfoDesign.com. I mean, the company website is now being redone,

47:05 – 47:11

but we will have that active. But for now, like, if you find me on LinkedIn, you can send me a

47:11 – 47:16

message or, you know, if you find my email, my personal blog is down, it’s being redone. But

47:16 – 47:23

yeah, I would say those are the best ways to get in touch. That’s great. That’s great. And Sheila,

47:24 – 47:28

where can folks get a hold of you? And how can they become a student to take your class?

47:31 – 47:34

So, they can go to my personal blog, SheilaPontis.com,

47:35 – 47:41

my email. I’m also a very old fashioned person. So, email is the best way. I do respond to all

47:41 – 47:45

the emails. That’s, I can’t help it. If you write, you will get a response.

47:45 – 47:47

All right. Good to know. Good to know.

47:47 – 47:56

Sheila at SenseInfoDesign.com. They can reach out through LinkedIn. And that’s

47:56 – 48:02

as much social presence I have. We are going to be offering workshops through Sense

48:03 – 48:08

in the future. So, next year. But so far, Northeastern University, if you want to join

48:08 – 48:18

the program for fall 2024, so they can go to NortheasternUniversity.com and find out

48:18 – 48:24

more about the program for IDDD. Yeah. That’s great. That’s great. Well,

48:24 – 48:31

a look out for the workshops. Thank you both for coming on the show. The book is Information

48:31 – 48:36

Unbound, Key Concepts and Skills for Making Sense in a Changing World. I think everybody who’s in

48:36 – 48:40

the field should check it out. There’s an amazing amount of content in here for everybody. So,

48:40 – 48:43

thank you both for coming on the show. It’s been great chatting with you.

48:43 – 48:45

Thank you so much. Thank you.

48:47 – 48:51

And thanks everyone for tuning into this week’s episode of the show. I hope you enjoyed that.

48:51 – 48:54

You’re going to notice a few changes here and there in the show. I’m going to try a few new

48:54 – 48:59

things in the next few months, particularly on the show notes, give you a bit more sort of

48:59 – 49:04

introduction to the show, some bullet points that’ll help you summarize the main points of the

49:04 – 49:08

show. So, if that’s useful, please do let me know. If you’d like to hear from other guests,

49:08 – 49:15

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49:15 – 49:19

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49:19 – 49:26

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49:26 – 49:31

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49:31 – 49:35

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49:35 – 49:40

or as a one-time payment through PayPal. But in any case, I hope you enjoyed the show. I hope you

49:40 – 49:45

keep tuning in every other week as I produce episodes on data, data visualization, and

49:45 – 49:50

presentation skills. So, until next time, this has been the PolicyViz Podcast. Thanks so much for

49:50 – 49:57

listening. A number of people helped bring you the PolicyViz Podcast. Music is provided by the NRIs.

49:57 – 50:02

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