I often write about practical software how-tos. But at my core, I’m software-agnostic. I don’t care which software program you choose. I’ve seen stellar visualizations in good ol’ Excel and downright embarrassing visualizations in fancier software programs whose salespeople pretend that their software is a…
Viewer considerations are key: What type of information do your viewers need to see? What information do they already have? What information are they expecting? How many points in time should be included? Will you present aggregated or disaggregated findings? How long do you anticipate…
I teach about data visualization a lot. And it basically comes down to two techniques: simplification and emphasis. Here’s a default graph with fictional data: First, simplify the graph. Remove the border. Remove the horizontal grid lines. Remove the vertical axis. Remove the legend. Remove…
The only thing I love more than analyzing research data is analyzing personal finance data. In both cases, simple descriptive statistics and basic charts can shine a spotlight on interesting patterns and help people choose their course of action. Not too long ago, a friend…
This post has been a long time coming. Stephanie Evergreen and I knew some time ago that evaluators and social scientists had a thirst for better graphs, a clear understanding of why better graphs were necessary, but they lacked efficient guidance on how, exactly, to make…