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…
I recently discussed four options for labeling line graphs. A personal favorite is to place the labels directly on top of the data points, like this: There’s been a lot of interest in this labeling technique, so here’s your step-by-step tutorial! First, set up…
Have a list of words that need some alphabetizing? Have a list of numbers that you want to arrange from least to greatest or greatest to least? Rather than painstakingly rearranging your rows by hand, let Excel’s Sorting and Filtering features do the heavy lifting…
I recently partnered with a group of public health researchers. We were brainstorming different ways to display the number of new HIV infections in each subgroup. The organization wanted to compare HIV infections among men who have sex with men (MSM), African Americans, Hispanics/Latinos, and injection…
Within the past year, I’ve led 60+ in-person and virtual workshops for 2,800+ participants. Most of these trainings have focused on data visualization best practices and how-to’s; other topics have included dashboard automation, research methods, and data analysis. I can always tell when someone has…