DPHU1008 Chap.8 Data Storytelling: Four Pillars and Feminist Principles
Data Storytelling: Four Pillars and Feminist Principles
Lecture 8 is about representing, rendering and narrativising data. Its tools come from Feigenbaum and Alamalhodaei's Data Storytelling Workbook, required in Weeks 8 and 9, whose visual storytelling section breaks visual design into Four Pillars: symbol, colour, caption and editorial layout. Every pillar serves a Think, Feel, Do goal, meaning what the audience should think, feel and do after meeting the story.
The course outline's brief for Assessment 3 uses a second list of pillars, data, context, narrative and visuals, which organises the redesign itself.
The workbook also sets out six principles of feminist data visualisation drawn from D'Ignazio and Klein: rethink binaries, embrace pluralism, examine power and encourage empowerment, consider context, legitimise embodiment and affect, and make the labour of the process visible.
The Assessment 3 planning sheet makes these principles and the pillars required supports for your design choices.
The workbook's examples show bias entering through toolkits: icon sets that offered only bathroom-sign figures for men and women, and a police misconduct dataset that had no gender column until it was recoded.
Its colour guidance includes practical checks, such as strong contrast between type and background and testing a design in greyscale. Segel and Heer's seven genres of narrative visualisation, from the annotated chart to the comic strip and film, help you choose an editorial form.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Narrativising data: a story with conflict, audience and purpose
- 02
Symbol: resonant and relevant to the audience
- 03
Colour: cultural meanings, contrast and accessibility
- 04
Caption: anchoring one reading of a polysemic image
- 05
Editorial layout: arranging elements for the platform
- 06
Think, Feel, Do as the test of a story
- 07
Six principles of feminist data visualisation
- 08
Outline pillars for the redesign: data, context, narrative and visuals
- 09
Seven genres of narrative visualisation
Worked example · free
Redesigning a gendered careers infographic
- +1Symbol: replace bathroom-sign figures with tools or hands, so the icon resonates with the work rather than a gender stereotype.
- +1Colour: drop pink and blue for one palette that highlights the gap between roles instead of the genders.
- +1Principle, rethink binaries: show the share of nonbinary and women engineers where data allow, and note where categories were limited.
- +1Think, Feel, Do: think the gap is made, feel it is unfair, act by questioning hiring defaults.
Key terms
- Four Pillars
- The workbook's design levers for visual data stories: symbol, colour, caption and editorial layout.
- Think, Feel, Do
- The intended outcome of a data story: what the audience should think, feel and do.
- Anchorage
- Barthes's term for a caption fixing one meaning of an image that could be read many ways.
- Editorial layout
- The arrangement of a story's elements on a page, screen or poster to deliver its message.
- Chartjunk
- Tufte's term for decoration in a chart that carries no data and distracts from the message.
- Feminist data visualisation
- Design guided by principles such as rethinking binaries, considering context and making labour visible.
- Narrativising data
- Turning data into a story with a conflict, an audience and a purpose.
Data Storytelling: Four Pillars and Feminist Principles FAQ
Are the four pillars in the outline the same as the workbook's?
No. The outline's Assessment 3 brief lists data, context, narrative and visuals and credits Tufte, while the workbook lists symbol, colour, caption and editorial. Use the outline's list to structure the task and the workbook's pillars inside the visuals step, citing each by source.
What does Think, Feel, Do mean in practice?
Before designing, decide what the audience should believe, what emotion should carry that belief and what action should follow. Every symbol, colour, caption and layout choice is then judged by whether it delivers those outcomes.
How many feminist data principles are there?
The workbook's table gives six principles of feminist data visualisation. The later Data Feminism book uses a longer list and calls rethinking binaries and hierarchies its fourth principle, so name the version you cite.
What is narrativising data?
It means turning data into a story with a conflict, a target audience and a purpose. The workbook's examples set a tension first, such as people against the environment, then choose symbols, colours, captions and layout that lead the audience toward the intended message.
Why do captions matter so much in data storytelling?
Images are polysemic: they can be read in many ways. A caption anchors one reading, steering the audience toward the intended Think, Feel, Do and away from interpretations that could undermine or distort the message.
Assessment move
Pick one infographic each week and audit it pillar by pillar using the four questions in this chapter. Draft a Think, Feel, Do for a cause you care about and sketch six cards for it, as the workbook's modular challenge suggests. Memorise the six feminist principles with one example each, since the Assessment 3 plan requires them.
Try the six-card layout exercise from the workbook on paper, with a headline, four chart cards and a final action card. Keep a page of strong captions you find, with a note on which reading each one anchors.
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