Lots of data are still presented and released as tables. But why, when we know that visual representations are so much easier to read and understand? Eric Newburger from the U.S. Census Bureau has an interesting theory. In a short talk on visualization at the Census Bureau, he describes how in the 1880s, the Census published maps and charts. Many of those are actually amazingly well done, even by today’s…
One of the most common mistakes people make when creating charts is to cut off the vertical axis. But why is that a problem? And what can you do when you need to show data where the amount of change is small compared to the absolute values? When we think of continuous data, we almost always think of values that have a meaningful zero. There is no question what an…
Are you looking for inspiration while writing a paper or grant? Do you feel that there is a lack of information visualization content on Twitter? Is your timeline too empty and slow? Follow @InfoVis_Ebooks, a Twitter account that posts random pieces of text from infovis papers. Related Work Accounts that tweet more or less random snippets of text have become a genre in themselves. If you’ve spent any time on Twitter, you’ve…
Data comes in a number of different types, which determine what kinds of mapping can be used for them. The most basic distinction is that between continuous (or quantitative) and categorical data, which has a profound impact on the types of visualizations that can be used. The main distinction is quite simple, but it has a lot of important consequences. Quantitative data is data where the values can change continuously,…
In the 1970s, it was the protest songs. In the 1980s, it was the anti-war movies. Today, the protest is no longer happening in songs or movies. Today, it’s online, based on data, and using visualization. Gun Deaths It’s a very abstract and yet very clear image: something moves along a trajectory, is suddenly stopped, and drops to the ground. A gun has been fired, somebody has been killed. Periscopic’s…
In the 1970s, it was the protest songs. In the 1980s, it was the anti-war movies. Today, the protest is no longer happening in songs or movies. Today, it’s online, based on data, and using visualization. Gun Deaths It’s a very abstract and yet very clear image: something moves along a trajectory, is suddenly stopped, and drops to the ground. A gun has been fired, somebody has been killed. Periscopic’s…
Arguments in data visualization are so fierce because the stakes are so low is a great zinger that I’ve heard a few times recently. But it’s not always true. Data visualization influences important decisions every day. The Congressional Budget Office’s new snapshots are but one example. The role of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is to provide information to members of the U.S. Congress so they can make better decisions.…
To explore how we can make it easier to create new visualization designs, we are running a study based on a new approach, called visualization primitives. It lets you map data to the properties of objects like rectangles and ellipses. Build something w...
Maximizing the data-ink ratio sounds like a good idea, but when actually followed to the letter produces terrible and nonsensical results. Here is a more reasonable definition of chart junk that does away with the pretense of a mathematical formula and puts some common sense back into the question of good chart design. Much has been made of Tufte’s famous data-ink ratio, and many people like to rail, privately and…
