Improving The Comprehension Of Large Numbers Through Infovis-Staudinger

This note last modified October 2, 2024

#notesFromPaper Year : 2018 Tags : Authors: Staudinger

Fantastic resource on communicating large numbers and wealth inequality.

Their framework:

  • Unitization
    • describe X in terms of number of Y
  • Comparison
    • Use a similar item that people know.
  • Analogy
    • Similar to comparison, but do a unit conversion first. (e.g. visualize the U.S. debt as a road trip across the U.S.)
  • Zoom
    • have multiple steps of comparison, each of which steps up to the next
  • One to One Correspondence
    • Just use a loooot of symbols, and make the visualization space big. (e.g. each pixel represents a hundred dollar bill. Here’s how much the war in Iraq costs)
  • Space, Time, and Sound
    • Essentially “analogy”, but use space, time, and sound as your new units
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