161 | People of the Pandemic with Shirley Wu

Data Stories

We have renowned data visualizer Shirley Wu with us again (we had her before in episode 98) to talk about a new project she and her team developed to help people reason about the covid19 pandemic at a local community level. The team developed a simulation game that shows you what happens when you make certain sets of decisions over time that may affect the spread of the virus. You can play with others and your goal is to cooperate.

Needless to say the tool uses some really interesting visualizations also but this is not the main point. It’s interesting to see the intersection between data visualization, simulation and gaming. With Shirley we talk about how the project started, specific challenges they faced, how it was received, and future developments.

Other simulations:

• • WaPo: Why outbreaks like coronavirus spread exponentially, and how to “flatten the curve”
  • Nicky Case: What Happens Next?
  • Melting Asphalt: Outbreak

https://datastori.es/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/161_Made_by_Headliner.mp4

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Related episodes

• Data Sketches with Nadieh Bremer and Shirley Wu

章节

1. Welcome back to Data Stories! (00:00:25)

2. Our podcast is listener-supported, please consider making a donation! (00:00:57)

https://www.patreon.com/datastories

3. Our topic: The game People of the Pandemic (00:01:34)

https://peopleofthepandemicgame.com

4. Our guest: Shirley Wu (00:02:03)

https://sxywu.com

5. What's the project about? (00:03:42)

6. Why did you decide to put out a game on this topic? (00:06:37)

7. Why do you control only your individual decision in the game? (00:14:06)

8. Playfulness vs. seriousness (00:17:51)

9. What were your learnings of this project? (00:25:55)

10. What were your technical challenges? (00:28:15)

11. What was the feddback to the game? (00:33:36)

12. Will there be a follow-up? (00:35:48)

13. Where you can play it and give feedback? (00:37:05)

https://peopleofthepandemicgame.com

14. Get in touch with us and support us on Patreon (00:38:14)

https://www.patreon.com/datastories