The 2020 Harvard Discovery Series kicked off in great style with a presentation by renowned data visualization expert Alberto Cairo, a journalist, designer, and the Knight Chair in Visual Journalism at the School of Communication of the University of Miami. In his talk "Data Visualization: Reasons, not Rules," Alberto advocated that we think about data visualization not as a discipline based on strict rules, but as a series of decisions that creators should make based on reasons. Ultimately, this process results in stronger and more relevant visualizations.

Recording and Resources

• View a recording of Alberto's presentation here (the first few moments were cut off): https://harvard.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=cb8f5389-f453-431c-8fc8-ac3d00e1ddaf
• DSSG event page with full description
• See all Harvard Discovery Series events here
• Presentation slides
• Recommended resources from Alberto:
  • White Space is Not Your Enemy: https://www.amazon.com/White-Space-Your-Enemy-Communicating/dp/0240824148
  • The Pudding: https://pudding.cool/
  • The Data Visualization Society (especially their Slack channel) https://www.datavisualizationsociety.com/
  • Color Oracle (free color blindness simulator for Windows, Mac and Linux) https://colororacle.org/
  • Tamara Munzner: https://twitter.com/tamaramunzner
  • Isabel Meirelles: https://twitter.com/IsabelMeirelles
  • Cole Nussbaumer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EMW7io4rSI
  • Fundamentals of Data Visualization: A Primer on Making Informative and Compelling Figures: https://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Data-Visualization-Informative-Compelling-ebook/dp/B07PP4Q7PP