The stories our charts don't tell (yet)

Every chart highlights something. Every dashboard prioritises something. Every metric leaves something out.

This dialogue session asks a simple but uncomfortable question: When we create visualisations, do we know what we’re helping decision-makers see; and what we might be nudging them to ignore?

In data visualisation, we often focus on clarity, aesthetics, and storytelling. But before colour palettes and chart types, there are deeper choices: What counts as success? What gets measured, and what doesn’t? What assumptions are built into our models, proxies, and “theories of change”? What forms of value get reduced to a number because they’re easier to plot?

Given how many decisions in today's contexts are informed by data visualisations and subsequent abstractions, this session brings the conversation back to visualisation as framing. Not just “Is this chart clear?” but “What worldview does this chart assume?”

Structure & Flow (WIP)

1. Opening provocation (10 min) A few real-world chart examples that look “correct” but embed strong assumptions. Participants reflect: what story does this visualisation make obvious? What alternative stories disappear?

2. Small-group dialogue (15 min) Participants discuss guided prompts drawn from their own practice:

• A time when a visualisation changed a decision
• A metric they felt uneasy about using
• Something important that couldn’t be visualised

3. Collective synthesis (10 min) Groups share patterns and tensions. We surface recurring blind spots and trade-offs.

4. Co-creating a reflective toolkit (10 min) We build a short, practical checklist for more responsible visual framing (eg questions participants can use in their teams).

Intended Audience: Data analysts, visualisation designers, dashboard creators, researchers, students, and anyone who builds or consumes data stories (especially those working with policy, social impact, or organisational decision-making).

Learning Outcomes: Data visualisation is powerful because it simplifies complexity. But simplification is never neutral. As practitioners, we rarely pause to examine the interpretive frames we inherit that shape what ends up on the screen. This session connects everyday design choices to broader questions of value, responsibility, and influence.