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: