Visualized Inequalities from alien worlds

Complex social problems demand problem solvers to dissect their causes, components, system dynamics, evolutions, and consequences. But, albeit the abundance of data about social phenomena available today, some of those problems, such as the unequal distribution of wealth, the devastation of natural resources, or the lack of social wellness seem to worsen. So, part of solving complex social issues is not the lack of data about our societies, but perhaps the poor interpretation of such data. Data visualization and visual analytics have proven to be invaluable tools to help students to develop insights and understanding of social issues beyond the descriptive statistics presented in periodical reports. Tinkering with the 2018 dataset of human inequalities from the United Nations Development Programme, graphic design students gained invaluable insights while they explored solutions to issues of data representation, information interpretation, and policy impact assessment. The rich dataset includes inequality dimensions such as education, income and equity distribution dissected by gender from all countries for the last 27 years. The student learnings come from experiencing a rich design process that spans from the formulation of research questions about foreign regions of the world and processes the dataset, down to convey visually to a general public their unsettling findings. The diversity of ethnicities in the classroom is also a rich source of learning. That is the case of students with relatives or ancestors from stereotyped parts of the world, or patriarchal structures and education inequality.