Q&A with an Expert: Dr. Aris Winger on Units in Data Viz

In his talk titled "Understanding Numbers In This Society: The Necessity of Units in Data Visualization", Aris discusses how charts and data visualizations are continuing to dominate the way in which we as a society communicate important information. In this interactive talk, we will look into a particular element of data visualizations that is often overlooked and underappreciated: the units. We discuss the importance of why they should accompany every chart, discuss some radical ways in which they show up, and provide examples on how their exclusion from data visualizations in general can be harmful by providing an example from the presenter's own health profile. We explore how our choices to describe the numbers in a chart has an incredible impact on how a data visualization is perceived and understood.