Join the Victorian and Tasmanian Branch of the Statistical Society of Australia for their Annual General Meeting, where they will recap on their last year and vote in the new council for 2026. The AGM will be held at 6pm at the Parkville campus of the University of Melbourne and Online via Zoom. The AGM will be followed by a presentation by Associate Professor Sue Finch, University of Melbourne.
Date: Tuesday 24th March 2026
Time - AGM: 6:00pm - 6:30pm (AEDT)
Time - Presentation: 6:30pm - 7:30pm (AEDT)
Venue: Alison Harcourt Seminar Room (Room 162), Peter Hall Building, University of Melbourne, Parkville campus
For those who are unable to attend in person, a Zoom link will be sent with registration.
The agenda for the AGM will include presentation of Annual Reports and election of councillors. These will be emailed directly to members.
Please note that only Branch members may vote at the AGM, but anyone may attend the AGM and the seminar.
Title: The Graphical Side of Statistical Consulting
Statistical graphics and data visualisations are seen as essential tools in any statistician's toolbox. Clients are promised insights through visualisation, and these visualisations are often considered to be one important deliverable outcome of a consulting project. In this talk, I will consider two other perspectives on graphs in consulting.
Cleveland and McGill (1985, 1987) framed the task of graphical perception as the visual decoding of encoded information. Finch and Gordon (2015) articulated five principles of good graphs, including the principle of keeping the visual encoding transparent. This entails the construction of a graph that makes the viewer's task of visual decoding as simple as possible. Statisticians should be mindful of applying this principle and promoting it to clients and students. I will present examples of graphs that either observe or ignore this principle and discuss some findings from a review of graphs in academic papers and company annual reports.
Graphs can play an effective role in mediating the transactions between statistical consultants and their clients, and in supporting the pedagogy that is an important component of much statistical consulting. They can help build trust and understanding with clients who have limited statistical literacy. Graphs can assist in introducing the concepts behind statistical modelling and establishing a plan for analysis. When more formal teaching of statistical concepts might benefit a client, a consultant can draw on striking genuine examples and simulations. I provide some examples from my consulting experience.
Presenter: Associate Professor Sue Finch
Associate Professor Sue Finch is the Deputy Director of the Statistical Consulting Centre at the University of Melbourne, and co-chair of the Statistical Consulting Network of the Statistical Society of Australia. She consults with clients from the law, business, industry, government and academia. Providing plain language explanations and applied interpretations of statistical analysis, often using quality graphs, is an important part of her consulting practice.
@StatSocAus
