Hi #SmartCommunity friends, in this episode of the Smart Community podcast I have a fantastic chat with Jack Zhao.
Jack is a designer and maker of data visualisation with over 15 years of experience in research and industry. He co-founded Small Multiples with his partner Andrea Lau, where they help clients across all industries and sectors make data useful. Their recent focus has been on environment and sustainability projects, recognising the urgent need for attention in this space given the ongoing climate situation globally.
In this episode Jack tells us about Small Multiples’ work on environmental projects including helping councils measure recycling accessibility through spatial data visualisation and tracking litter across New South Wales for the Environmental Protection Agency. Jack and I discuss their design process from initial client conversations through to deployment, emphasising the importance of understanding audience needs and iterating based on feedback.
We talk about memorable examples including Periscopic’s powerful US gun deaths visualisation and Small Multiples’ own Census Explorer project spanning three Australian censuses. We finish our chat discussing Jack’s advice about leveraging AI to break capacity bottlenecks while focusing on specific audiences rather than designing for generic users. As always, we hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it.
What we cover in this episode:
- Jack Zhao’s background as co-founder of Small Multiples, a data visualisation studio with 15 years of experience
- Current focus on environmental and sustainability projects addressing urgent climate challenges
- The Recycle Mate project helping councils measure recycling accessibility using population density and travel distance data
- Spatial visualisation showing gaps in recycling infrastructure and informing resource allocation decisions
- The NSW EPA litter tracking project monitoring specific types of litter across land and waterways using granular scientific data
- How data visualisation provides evidence for government interventions and measures program success like plastic bag bans
- Small Multiples’ design process: understanding problems, audience analysis, data exploration, iterative prototyping and deployment
- The importance of distinguishing between expert users who need detailed options versus lay audiences requiring guided, simplified approaches
- Their role as tool builders providing digital instruments that make complex data interrogation seamless and pleasurable
- The power of Periscope’s US gun deaths visualisation using restraint, animation pacing, and metaphor to create emotional impact
- The Census Explorer project spanning three Australian censuses, available in eight languages and designed for varying data literacy levels
- The experimental chocolate data physicalisation project making census diversity data literally digestible
- Their UNDP social-economic recovery platform during COVID combining hundreds of data sources for policy makers globally
- Key challenges in bridging the gap between raw data and organisational goals for time-poor decision makers
- The role of data visualisation as a common language enabling productive conversations between domain experts and decision makers
- The integration of storytelling within visualisation to provide essential context and meaning
- Leveraging AI to break capacity bottlenecks while maintaining focus on specific audience needs rather than generic solutions
Quotes:
“We’re tool builders. We help people diagnose and solve their problems by giving them the right tools to prod and investigate… giving them a jet pack to fly up really high to see the big picture.”
“We treat [data visualisation] as a vehicle for storytelling… packaging up metaphors and contextual information and narratives and data into something people can understand and care about.”
“Our job becomes… make something that’s very complex/overwhelming… and turn that into something that’s persuasive… and obvious to our users that yes, there is a connection between the data points and what they want to do.”
“ [Visualisation is] something both groups can bring up the screen and point at and have a conversation about. Rather than, you know, pointing to a particular column or cell in a spreadsheet.
“Rather than building just one big solution for everything… maybe we can make many little things because it’s much cheaper, much quicker to make things now… and take your audience down many different paths.”
Links:
Periscopic’s US Gun Deaths visualisation
Census Explorer project by Small Multiples
UNDP Social-Economic Recovery platform
Connect:
Connect with Jack Zhao on LinkedIn or email jack@small.mu
Connect with me via email: hello@mysmart.community
Connect with The Smart Community Podcast via LinkedIn and watch on YouTube
Podcast Production by Perk Digital
This podcast is recorded on Yugarabul country and edited on Gaibal country. I pay my respects to traditional owners of country and their elders past and present. I also extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples listening today. Here on the Smart Community Podcast, we talk about data, technology, communities and the future. First Nations peoples have been sharing knowledge, caring for country, and telling stories for tens of thousands of years. I honour that deep connection of storytelling and community connection as we continue our conversation together here today.
Disclaimer
The views, opinions, and perspectives expressed by guests on The Smart Community Podcast are solely those of the individual speakers. They do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or positions of the host, Zoe Eather, or of The Smart Community Podcast as a whole.
Any discussion of ideas, products, organisations, or services by podcast guests does not constitute endorsement or recommendation by the host or the podcast. Listeners are encouraged to form their own opinions and seek professional advice where appropriate.
