Chart Porn » Graphic Design (general)

Beyond the Hairball

Dustin — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 22:06:50 +0000

Robert Kosara examines alternatives to the classic (useless) node-link hairball network diagram.

Bad!

Better?

We Need a New Pie Chart

Dustin — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 15:53:52 +0000

While poking around the World Economic Forum’s website I came across this talk by Adam Bly from 2011 about the important uses of data visualization to policy makers:

OECD Statistics Explorer and Some Other Cool Shit

Dustin — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 16:45:52 +0000

This is an example of why you keep checking back on mediocre data visualization tools. The last time I looked at the OECD’s explorer, it was slow, kinda clunky, and not very innovative. This morning I took another look. Wow! It has interactive choropleth maps, motion scatter plots, profile plots, time graphs, and cool histogram tools – and all of them have excellent filters and fine tuning controls, can be viewed over time, are smoothly animated and you’re allowed to load your own data.

But wait! There’s more! MUCH more! It turns out the explorer is just one tool created by the Swedish National Center for Visual Analytics (NCVA), who have constructed a set of Geovisual Analytics Visualization (GAV) Flash tools, including what you need to create your own statistics explorer. The NCVA also has a spin-off company that sells a desktop version of the explorer, a Flow Map explorer that draws proportionate arrows on maps to track flows, and a multi-dimensional explorer (which I only played with a little – but is very very cool).

Check out the scatter tables in the MDIM as a way to select data in the other two panels:

I’m almost embarrassed I haven’t seen these before. On the other hand, I love that there is such innovation going on – all the time.

12 Historic Visualizations

Dustin — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:54:00 +0000

A nice compilation post over at Owni.eu

Browser Market Share

Dustin — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:39:00 +0000

Aesthetically this is obviously quite nice. The roll-over data is snappy quick. The color selection is clear and intuitive. But there’s something about these nested arc charts that I just don’t like – they don’t seem like a very good way to illustrate historical data. It was created as a simple example of the Axiis data visualization framework – which offers several other Flex based graphic tools. (Hat tip to Ryan C for sending this along!)

Retail Sales

Dustin — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:33:22 +0000

Here’s an example of how more isn’t always better. Compare the interactive presentation of retail sales data below to the static version – both from the Wall Street Journal. In my opinion the static version presents the information in a much clearer and usable format. The only thing it’s missing is a chart for “total retail sales”. Regarding the interactive version, I’ve never liked stacked bar charts over time unless they illustrate very clear trends – with this many similar segments I think they are pretty silly (though the ability to drill down does alleviate this a smidgeon). (related article)

Descriptive Photos

Dustin — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 19:35:45 +0000

One year and 3888 photos of the same scenery in one picture:

Globe on a drop of water: (how it’s done)

Color combining the rainbow by spinning an umbrella:

The Cartography Nerds’ Map of the USA

Dustin — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 15:43:05 +0000

David Imus created a new map of the United States by applying careful attention to details, design, and symbology. The figure below compares Imus’ version (on the right) to National Geographics (left). An article over at Slate highlights some of the design choices Imus made, as does a pamphlet from Imus’ website. Personally, I think it’s great that people are re-examining the “standard” way to map things, and love the way Imus squeezed in as much information as possible, without sacrificing clarity – on the other hand, it apparently took him two years and over 6,000 hours to complete. Yikes!

Spineless Classics

Dustin — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 21:45:00 +0000

The entire text of books rendered as posters.

Ending the Infographic Plague

Dustin — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 20:01:00 +0000

Megan McArdle critques the content of several info-posters in an article over at The Atlantic". It’s sort of shooting fish in a barrel, considering the infogrpaphics she chose – but I give her props for taking the time to double check the data.

Correlation or Causation

Dustin — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 19:36:25 +0000

Amusing examples of why you shouldn’t trust a lot of charts. Thanks to Sam F. for sending me the link!

Designer’s Toolkit

Dustin — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 16:55:00 +0000

Based on a survey of 180 designers and creative professionals. This is a good reference for new tools to play with if you’re not happy with what you’re using now. The most glaring omission I see is Sugarsync for storage – it’s like Dropbox, but with greater flexibility. (via)

Cross-Border Investment Map

Dustin — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 21:01:51 +0000

This is an interesting example because they really tried to have every part of the graphic convey information: color, size, and line type. (via The Big Picture)

If you look at the 2011 update of the report, you can see they have used a similar, but somewhat cleaner design. The labels are all clearer, and the use of a lighter background map and grey text improves the contrast considerably. Finally, I think using the color of the arrows instead of width for the value was a good call – as that’s easier for the eye to distinguish.

Unfortunately, I don’t know of any software that let’s you produce these quickly – you generally have to draw them by hand.

Preattentive Attributes

Dustin — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 14:36:00 +0000

Over at Storytelling with Data, Cole provides a well written example of how to use preattentive attributes to make a better graphic. What the hell are “preattentive attributes”?

"Preattentive attributes" in the world of information visualization is a fancy descriptor for aspects of a visual that hit our iconic memory. Iconic memory is what happens in our brain before short term memory kicks in, before we even really know that we’re thinking. Iconic memory is tuned to pick up preattentive attributes: things like color, size, added marks, and spacial position (related Stephen Few article)

This reminded me of some efforts on the education front to teach Graphicacy (Graphic literacy). While “graphicacy” is one of the dumber new words I’ve heard in a while, the concept is sound – the skill set of interpreting graphs. I have definitely witnessed people learning how to interpret new graph types, and it’s a fascinating process. The American Society for Innovation Design in Education (ASIDE) have done some interesting work on the subject if you want to look into it further:

The Value of Data Visualization

Dustin — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 17:38:50 +0000

This 2 minute video from Column Five is excellent.