Setting the Purpose and Identifying Key Factors - Data Visualization: A Successful Design Process - page 43

The data scientist
The data scientist is characterized as the data miner, wearing the miner's hat. They
are responsible for sourcing, acquiring, handling, and preparing the data. This means
demonstrating the technical skills to work with data sets large and small and of
many different types. Once acquired, the data scientist is responsible for examining
and preparing the data. In this proposed skill set model, it is the data scientist who
will hold the key statistical and mathematical knowledge and they will apply this to
undertake exploratory visual analysis to learn about the patterns, relationships, and
descriptive properties of the data.
The journalist
The journalist is the storyteller, the person who establishes the narrative approach to
the visualization's problem context. Working with the data scientist and the initiator,
they are able to establish the key stories and angles with which to slice the analysis.
They work on formulating the data questions that help keep the project's focus on its
intended editorial path. Building on the initiator's initial sparks of ideas, the journalist
will develop a deeper researcher mindset to really explore the analytical opportunities.
The computer scientist
The computer scientist is the executor, the person who brings the project
alive. With their critical technical capability they are ultimately the ones who
will construct the solution. They will also bolster the data scientist with their
technical know-how to most effectively and efficiently handle the data gathering,
manipulation, and pre-production visualization activities. The breadth of software
and programming literacy will have a great bearing on the potential direction and
sophistication of the data visualization solution, whether this is created within a
tool or through programming.
The designer
The designer is the creative, the one, who, in harmony with the computer scientist,
will deliver the solution. They have the eye for visual detail, a flair for innovation and
style and are fully appreciative of the potential possibilities that exist. However, they
also have the necessary discipline to follow the message established by the initiator
and taken on by the journalist. They respect the capabilities of the computer scientist
in terms of what solutions could be feasible, but themselves have the helicopter-like
vision to rationalize and reason what things will work and will not work, and why.