For years I thought I was just a writer, but when I sat down to design and started playing around with it, I realized that, really, it's pretty easy. Obviously it's more than just a set of rules, but the basics of design are actually pretty simple and quite mathematical. The link between data and design works at quite a fundamental level.

Data is the new soil, because for me, it feels like a fertile, creative medium. Over the years, online, we've laid down a huge amount of information and data, and we irrigate it with networks and connectivity, and it's been worked and tilled by unpaid workers and governments.

I think everyone is struggling somewhat with presentation. The Internet is generally well designed, if you look at the most popular websites, so we expect our visuals to be at that level of quality. When you sit in a presentation and you're looking at nonsensical pie charts and the like, your audience does disengage. People across a range of industries, not just science, are struggling with their communication because their output doesn't compete with what people see on a day-to-day basis.

By visualizing information, we turn it into a landscape that you can explore with your eyes, a sort of information map. And when you’re lost in information, an information map is kind of useful.

I think it's good practice, if you're a writer, or anyone who's shaping narrative, to be flexible and open with the direction of the narrative.

If you want to visualize something in its fullness you have to look at every perspective and every angle, and that means - sometimes uncomfortably - looking at things you don't want to look at.

Visualizing information is a form of knowledge compression.