DataViz Tip #28: Chart Types: Radar and Polar Charts

Radar and Polar charts help you represent series of quantitative variables in a circular manner on axes starting from the same point. You can think of Radar chart as a radial version of a line chart, and Polar chart as a radial bar chart. Both chart types are at their best when variables in a […]

DataViz Tip #27: Chart Types: Treemap

Treemaps are a great data visualization tool to represent data items as part of a whole. Items in a treemap are represented as rectangles proportionally to their value and fill up the entire chart area. This lets viewers perceive their relative size much better than with slices in a pie chart and it also lends […]

DataViz Tip #26: Chart Types: Sankey Diagram

In this and several of the following tips, we will cover some of the more “exotic” chart types you can use to visualize your data. Today we are starting with a Sankey Diagram. Sankey diagrams are used to depict the flow of data between several categories. This chart type is very good at giving viewers […]

DataViz Tip #25: Credit Sources, Disclose Assumptions

Your data visualizations are based on data (duh!). This data comes from somewhere. When it’s not your data, remember to credit the source. And even when it’s yours a good explanation of where this data comes from and how it was collected goes a long way towards setting the playing field and expectations for the […]

Dear Data – An Inspirational DataViz Book Can Be Yours

Every month we give away a dataviz book to one of our newsletter subscribers. Last month it was the classic The Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Edward R. Tufte. And the book is on its way to India to Abdul Haseeb from Trading System API. We are continuing the tradition of following a practical […]

DataViz Tip #24: Use Eye-Candy to Attract Attention

In the purest data visualization world, things that detract from the comprehension of the data are often frowned upon. Things like 3D charts, visual effects, and other purely aesthetic enhancements are often considered a no-no. This point of view is perfectly valid and even valuable in a world where you create scientific reports or visualizations […]

DataViz Tip #22: Let Simplest Visualizations Lead Your Thought Process

When you get your raw data there’s usually a very straightforward way to visualize it “as is.” Instead of looking at the raw data trying to figure out interesting angles just make the simplest chart (from the data perspective) and let what you see guide your further efforts. Every month I create reports about the […]

DataViz Tip #21: Explanatory vs. Exploratory Charts

Sometimes you create charts to tell some specific story or drive a point home. Like in this chart of the stock market performance during 2016 US Presidential election night taken from this CNN article: Other times you just want to give your viewers a great tool to explore the data and make their own conclusions. […]