On Saturday 13th September, the Royal Society of Edinburgh hosted a workshop titled: “Your Data, Your Story” as part of their Curious festival of knowledge. The event was led by a group of experts in data visualisation and data ethics, including three of our own, Dr Areti Manataki, Dr Tristan Henderson and Tilcia Woodville-Price.

The interactive workshop was designed for the general public, in particular for non-experts that are curious about data visualisation and data ethics. Participants were prompted to reflect on their own examples of personal data and think about the ethics behind the collection of personal data. This was followed by a brief introduction into data visualisation and physical representations of data (also called data physicalisations). Lastly came a hands-on activity which featured the use of everyday objects, such as string, pasta and Lego, to create physical representations of our data.

It was fascinating to speak with participants and learn what aspects of their personal data were important to them. Participants physicalized data ranging from their social media usage to the quality of interactions with their children, to the data about emails received versus responded and everything in between.

What about you? What kind of data is meaningful to you? Have you thought about how visualising data may help your daily activities or give you an opportunity for reflection?

Workshop team:

Dr Areti Manataki, Lecturer, School of Computer Science, University of St Andrews

Dr Uta Hinrichs, Reader in Data Visualisation, University of Edinburgh

Dr Tristan Henderson, Senior Lecturer, School of Computer Science, University of St Andrews

Dushani Perera, Research Associate, University of Edinburgh

Tilcia Woodville-Price, Doctoral Candidate, University of St Andrews