Hi Friends,
I hope the holiday season has been treating you well. I have been thinking of you all and how you have been doing on your dear-data journey.
In my previous article I invited you to frame your question and define your inquiry. Today, I have a strategy I’d like to share with you about taking the leap from framing your question to identifying what data you can gather.
Last year I took a workshop with Katya Davydova on giving actionable feedback, and WOW – the strategies she taught were incredibly effective. I left with my wheels turning, thinking about all the different ways I could apply what I learned. The most memorable strategy was - minimizing the use of blur words.
Example: “Your artwork is exceptional”
Blur word: exceptional
More specific alternative: The contrast between the dark foreground and bright background creates a sense of depth that makes me feel like I'm looking into the scene
Blur words point to subjective concepts that may have unique meaning to different people. One person’s idea of “exceptional” might have a very different threshold and definition than someone else’s.
The most unexpected place I found myself applying the blur words strategy was in my day to day work as a data analyst to define my inquiry better and identify the data points I needed to gather to answer a key research question.
Frame your Question → Defining your Inquiry
Strategy 1: Reducing Blur Words
Example: “Do some kinds of people read more content?”
Blur phrase 1: “some kinds of people” - This is vague because it doesn't specify which categories or characteristics one is talking about – age groups? Education levels? Professions? Personality types? Cultural backgrounds?
More specific alternatives:
"Do introverts read more than extroverts?"
"Do people in urban areas read more than those in rural areas?"
Blur phrase 2: “read more” - The word "more" could also be considered slightly blurry – More books? More hours per week? More pages? More than most other people?
More specific alternatives:
Do introverts read more books per month than extroverts?
How many/What % of people in my chosen groups (introverts vs extroverts) read for more than 1 hr daily or 5 hrs weekly?
Notice what I'm doing here: I'm using hypotheses to unblur the blur words.
When I replace "some kinds of people" with "introverts vs. extroverts" or "urban vs. rural residents," I'm not just picking random categories – I'm choosing hypotheses based on what I currently understand about the world. Maybe I've noticed that my introverted friends seem to read more, or I've read research suggesting reading habits differ by location.
Here's the interesting part: as my understanding of the world evolves, so do my hypotheses. The first time I ask "Do some kinds of people read more?", I might focus on personality types. A year later, with more experience, I might ask the same core question but now I'm curious about socioeconomic factors, or language backgrounds, or access to libraries.
The key question stays the same, but my analyses become more nuanced each time because I'm building on a deeper, richer understanding of what factors actually matter. Each iteration of the question reflects where I am in my learning journey.
Let’s try this with some examples relevant to our current theme of Food Journaling:
Example 1: Key Question: “Do I have healthy eating habits?”
Blur word 1: Healthy
More specific alternatives:
Do all 3 of my meals have fibre, protein, good fat?
How many of my meals are home-cooked vs. takeouts (will count salad as home-cooked) ?
Blur word 2: Habit
More specific alternatives:
In the past 7 days, on how many days did I meet my “healthy” criteria?
Example 2: Key Question: "Do I waste too much food?"
Blur word 1: "too much": Compared to what? A percentage of groceries? Dollar amount? Environmental impact?
More specific alternative:
Do I throw away more than 3-cups of spoiled food per week?
Blur word 2: "waste" : Food that spoils? Leftovers thrown out? Overbuying? Scraps that could be composted?
More specific alternative:
How many times per week do I throw away produce that is spoiled before I use it?
I’d argue that “spoiled” could also be considered a blur word given what I have learned about the food waste problem.
I would love to see your progress so far, even if it is just your question framing! Feel free to respond to this email / add comments to this post.
Next up: Tips on how to build your visual vocabulary and map your data points to an effective visualization.