{"podcast":{"title":"The PolicyViz Podcast","slug":"the-policyviz-podcast-1096919","podcast_index_feed_id":1096919,"rss_url":"https://feeds.zencastr.com/f/-k6yUlMb.rss","website_url":"https://policyviz.com/podcast/","image_url":"https://media.zencastr.com/image-files/5a0b59c06ebaa2000f259f8d/7af84444-9451-4413-b319-45f8ad09ca6d.png","author":"The PolicyViz Podcast","episode_count":311,"summary":"Learn how to be a great data communicator and visualizer with host Jon Schwabish. Hear from experts in the fields of data science, data visualization, and presentation skills to improve how you and your organization collect, analyze, and communicate your data in better, more efficient, and more effective ways.","last_synced_at":null,"page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-policyviz-podcast-1096919"},"episode":{"title":"AI, Dashboards, and Human Decisions: A Conversation with Melanie Tory","slug":"ai-dashboards-and-human-decisions-a-conversation-with-melanie-tory","published_at":"2026-03-25T04:15:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-policyviz-podcast-1096919/ai-dashboards-and-human-decisions-a-conversation-with-melanie-tory","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-policyviz-podcast-1096919","url":"https://zencastr.com/z/NYP0E9X6","audio_url":"https://redirect.zencastr.com/r/episode/69bd6c28f4c18659645510a5/size/53801700/audio-files/5a0b59c06ebaa2000f259f8d/7becbb59-aa86-41be-a397-cc033cf204c9.mp3","summary":"In this week's episode, I talk with Melanie Tory, Professor of the Practice at Northeastern University, about how people actually use dashboards in the real world — and why that use often looks very different from what designers intend. Her research reveals that dashboards frequently serve as a starting point for accessing data rather than tools for answering questions directly, with many users simply exporting data to Excel to do their real analytical work. We also explore her work on AI-enabled healthcare systems designed to help clinicians monitor patient risk in intensive care units, including how to visualize uncertainty in ways that busy medical teams can process quickly. And we close with a look at her emerging research on how people are beginning to use generative AI tools for data visualization tasks. It's a thought-provoking conversation about the gap between the tools we build and the ways people actually work with data. Subscribe to the PolicyViz Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Keywords: data visualization, dashboards, dashboard design, dashboard usability, data analysis workflows, Tableau dashboards, Power BI dashboards, human data interaction, Melanie Tory, data communication, dashboard research, analytics tools, business intelligence dashboards, data storytelling, data workflows, PolicyViz Podcast Become a patron of the PolicyViz Podcast [https://patreon.com/policyviz?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink] for as little as a buck a month Visit Melanie's webpage at Northeastern University [https://roux.northeastern.edu/people/melanie-tory/] Follow me on Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/jschwabish/?hl=en], LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanschwabish/], Substack [https://jschwa…","meta_description":"In this week's episode, I talk with Melanie Tory, Professor of the Practice at Northeastern University, about how people actually use dashboards in the re…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":2173,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-policyviz-podcast-1096919/episodes/ai-dashboards-and-human-decisions-a-conversation-with-melanie-tory/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-policyviz-podcast-1096919/ai-dashboards-and-human-decisions-a-conversation-with-melanie-tory.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}