DPHU1008 Chap.7 Data Forms: Structured and Unstructured Data
Data Forms: Structured and Unstructured Data
Lecture 6 surveys the forms data take and the approaches used to render them, from charts and infographics to narratives. The key concepts are the data set, structured and unstructured data, the data form and the creative data rendering.
Structured data sit in consistent rows and columns; unstructured data include interviews, photos, posts and notes whose meaning comes from reading them.
The storytelling workbook shows that structuring is work: organisations hold information in lists, mixed cells and sticky notes, and turning it into a spreadsheet involves decisions that software can later hide.
The workshop applies three questions to a short video using grains of rice to show one billionaire's wealth and to the hand-drawn postcards of Dear Data: describe the data set, decide whether it is structured, and ask what the chosen form does to the viewer.
The structuring guide in the workbook also introduces practical tools for cleaning data and explains how data types shape design: nominal categories such as countries, ordinal ranks such as ratings, and interval measures such as temperatures each suit different colour and chart choices.
Knowing the type of your data is the first design decision in the Assessment 3 redesign.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Structured data: consistent rows and columns
- 02
Unstructured data: meaning carried in text, image and sound
- 03
Structuring as a set of choices that software can hide
- 04
Data form: the medium as part of the argument
- 05
Creative data rendering: unexpected forms that make scale felt
- 06
Nominal, ordinal and interval data guide design
- 07
The rice video and Dear Data as contrasting creative forms
- 08
Cleaning and validating data before rendering
Worked example · free
Classifying a podcast series as data
- +1Classify: unstructured data, because meaning is carried in voices and stories, not in fields and rows.
- +1Explain why it matters: structuring the stories into counts of evictions would make them comparable but would drop tone, fear and context.
- +1Evaluate the form: audio carries affect and lets renters speak for themselves; it is weaker at showing scale, which a companion chart could supply.
Key terms
- Structured data
- Data organised in consistent rows and columns, one record per row and one kind of value per column.
- Unstructured data
- Data such as interviews, images and notes whose meaning must be read rather than counted.
- Data form
- The medium a rendering uses, from a bar chart to a sculpture or a sound recording.
- Creative data rendering
- A rendering that uses an unexpected form to make the scale or texture of data felt.
- Ordinal data
- Categories with a meaningful order, such as ranks, that suit stepped colour scales.
- Interval data
- Measured values on a continuous scale, which suit colour gradients and numeric axes.
- Nominal data
- Named categories with no inherent order, such as countries or product types.
Data Forms: Structured and Unstructured Data FAQ
Why does it matter whether data are structured?
Structure decides what can be counted and compared. Turning unstructured stories into rows makes patterns visible but strips away tone and context, so a critical analysis reports both what structuring reveals and what it discards.
What is a creative data rendering?
A rendering that chooses an unexpected medium, such as piles of rice or hand-drawn postcards, so that viewers feel the size or texture of the data. The course asks you to evaluate such choices and, in Assessment 3, to make one.
Which reading supports this week?
The workbook's section on visual data storytelling, including its guide to structuring data, supports the workshop. Kitchin's chapter on conceptualising data is listed again for the week on Moodle.
What is Dear Data and why is it studied?
Dear Data is a project of hand-drawn postcards that record everyday personal data. The workshop uses it to show a creative rendering of small, unstructured data, where the drawing itself carries texture and feeling that a spreadsheet would lose.
How do data types affect design choices?
Nominal categories need distinct colours with no implied order, ordered ranks suit stepped scales such as traffic-light colours, and measured intervals suit gradients or numeric axes. Choosing a form that matches the type keeps a rendering readable and honest.
Assessment move
Take one news story and list every piece of data in it, marking each as structured or unstructured. Then imagine a second form for the same story and write what it would gain and lose. Practise the three workshop questions on a new example each week before Assessment 2, since the outline links the activity to that task.
Rebuild one messy list from your own life, such as a shopping log, into rows and columns and note which details refused to fit. For every example you meet, write one line on what its form adds and one on what it costs.
DPHU1007 Media, Society and Politics · DPHU1001 Journalistic Voices and Values · DPHU1003 News Fundamentals
