Interview with Bill Shander, Information Designer
Q&A with Bill Shander, who is presenting at the 2023 Design+Data Summit for CreativePro
Bill Shander is an information designer, helping clients turn their data into compelling visual and often interactive experiences. He teaches data storytelling, information design and data visualization on LinkedIn Learning, at the University of Vermont, and in workshops around the world. Clients include the World Bank, Starbucks, multiple U.S. Government agencies, Big Four firms, and many more household names across a spectrum of industries.
Bill is also speaking at our upcoming online event, The Design + Data Summit, which takes place September 21-22, 2023. We thought it would be fun to get to know him better with some Q&A.
What’s the biggest mistake designers often make when working with data?
Many designers are uncomfortable working with data, and they cede too many decisions to their stakeholders. For instance, someone may be asking a designer to “make a bar chart,” but maybe that’s not what they need. Maybe their goals would be better served with a scatter plot or some other visual representation of the data. If the designer is more data literate, they’ll be able to provide more useful support. Just like a designer knows better than to just jump when a stakeholder says, “Can you make that a blue square…?” We need to know when and how to push back, and actually provide what’s needed, not just assume that what’s requested is what’s called for.
Where did your passion for working with data come from? What do you like most about blending data with design?
I always had clients with data, even when my business was a web design and development company. And it took me a long time to realize that that’s what I found most fun and interesting. I love taking complexity and making it accessible, simple, and relatable to people. This is why data was such a joyful challenge for me!
Your number one suggestion for new data visualization designers (or data-averse designers who are trying to embrace working with numbers)?
Learn to be comfortable with numbers. Seriously, you don’t need a degree in statistics. You don’t need to go back to school. But if you just know things like why the median might be more useful than the mean in some situations, why a distribution diagram may be more helpful than a bar chart in others…just a bit of basic data literacy training will go a long way toward helping you do this work effectively.
What’s one thing that data designers should never do?
Never get so hung up on the data that you forget you’re a designer. You know how to do design and communications. Don’t be intimidated or obsessed with the numbers so much that you ignore that you know what you’re doing. Numbers are an ingredient…a medium…so if you step back from them a bit, you’ll be more comfortable. (And yes, as said before, develop that data literacy which, interestingly, will give you more comfort to take that step back.)
What are you most excited to share in your upcoming session?
I love talking about pre-attentive processing because almost no one, even designers, have ever been told about it. And once you learn about it, it puts meat on the bones and a very specific reason to make all kinds of design decisions, especially but not exclusively about data-driven design!
This article was last modified on March 29, 2024
This article was first published on August 3, 2023
Commenting is easier and faster when you're logged in!
