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TA Tuesday (November 7, 2017)

Apologies for no TA post last week. Lots going on. Here's an extra special weekly dose of TA.

Tools and Resources

  • Who knew that graphics like those shown above have been tested by psychologists? Obviously, the creator and supporters of Icon Array do. Icon Array is a free online tool to generate personalized images of data. According to the site:
    Icon arrays use a matrix of icons (usually 100 or 1000 icons) to represent an at-risk population, simultaneously displaying both the number of expected events and the number of expected non-events. As a result, icon arrays have several advantages over simple numerical displays and other types of visual displays.
    1. Icon arrays can be read simply by counting icons. This enables icon arrays to be more precisely read than bar or pie charts. Recent research suggests that counting icons is particularly common among more numerate readers.
    2. Icon arrays show the part-whole relationship clearly in both relative count and relative area, thus embodying one of the advantages of pie charts and providing a significant advantage over bar charts and numerical representations.
    3. Icon arrays are inherently a frequency-based representation of risk. Research by Gigerenzer, Peters and others has shown that many people, especially the less numerate, respond differently to frequency representations of risk than they do to percentages.
    4. The icon arrays generated by Iconarray.com build the icons representing risk events from the bottom upwards by rows. As a result, these icon arrays have a rough height cue as well (displays of larger risks have colored icons rising higher than displays of lower risks), thus mirroring bar graphs in format as well.
  • Help A Reporter Out is kinda like a dating service. It introduces journalists and sources. Sign up and share your expertise. Help a journalist, hone your skills, expand your brand.
    Help a Reporter Out (HARO) is the most popular sourcing service in the English-speaking world, connecting journalists and bloggers with relevant expert sources to meet journalists' demanding deadlines and enable brands to tell their stories. HARO distributes more than 50,000 journalist queries from highly respected media outlets each year. Its straight-forward pitching process allows sources to find topics related to their expertise, industry or experience, while allowing journalists and bloggers to spend more time writing and less time sourcing.

At work


Learn something


Good read

  • One major takeaway from It's time to get rid of Breast Cancer Awareness Month:
    It would be lovely if a pink ribbon or T-shirt could cure breast cancer through osmosis. However, even lovelier — and more effective — are meaningful endeavors. Awareness alone won't cure or treat breast cancer. On the other hand, tangible actions to fund research and help women pay for screenings and treatment just might.


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