Design

Data can be fact and analytical. It can help you make objective decisions. Data can also evoke the feels, helping you understand and relate to something that used to be…

John Nelson has a knack for making maps that glow, where the base map serves as a dark backdrop and the data of interest sort of lights up. In a…

Missing data is everywhere. Or, I guess technically it’s nowhere. You know what I mean. Missing data is common, especially with temporal data over long periods of time. Just look…

In a 2005 paper “If I look at the mass I will never act”: Psychic numbing and genocide, Paul Slovic discusses big numbers, how we perceive them as they increase,…

There is visualization in practice and there is visualization in theory and research. Each should inform the other, but it typically doesn’t happen that way. Kennedy Elliot, a graphics editor…

Our daily lives are full of bias. We make assumptions about how the world works, why complex systems do what they do, and how precise measurements really are. That leads…

Robert Simmon provides a hands-on guide to get true color from satellite imagery. The atmosphere makes it a little tricky: The atmosphere scatters light from the sun before it hits…

On the PolicyViz podcast, Kim Rees of Periscopic and Mushon Zer-Aviv of Shual Design Studio discuss whether or not empathy plays a role in visualization. Stuff on this topic tends…

It’s true. Sometimes it’s okay for the y-axis to start at a non-zero value, which is why Johnny Harris and Matthew Yglesias for Vox tell people to shut up about…

Simple and surprisingly challenging.

Geoff McGhee for National Geographic highlights a handful of projects that form a genre that he calls “Steampunk” infographics. When I was remaking the Statistical Atlas with current data I…

On Writing Well by William Zinsser is a bestselling guide on writing well. Yep. Ben Jones parallels some of the principles in the book to visualization, seven principles in particular.…

Computers can calculate an infinite number of colors, but our brains can only process and see so much. This is why color spaces are important in visualization. Your code might…

Gestalt refers to our ability to see a whole from the parts, and it’s why visualization works. Otherwise, we wouldn’t see patterns (or lack of them). Elijah Meeks describes some…

Redesigning a visualization can be useful in teaching a point. Make a graphic better (or “better” depending on what angle you’re looking from) with a different layout and visual encodings.…

Quick and simple. It is a common theme in visualization that preaches clarity in as little time as possible, and it is certainly applicable in a variety of places. But…

In a discussion of context and visualization, Jen Christiansen pulls out a good snippet from Jacob Bronowski’s The Observer (1952) on design constraints.…

The process to purchase a MetroCard for the New York Subway is different from the process to purchase tickets for the Bay Area Rapid Transit in San Francisco. From the…

The simple analysis is to approach data blind, as machine output. But this almost always produces an incomplete analysis and a detached, less than meaningful visualization. Jacob Harris, a developer…

When it comes to storytelling, copious amounts of data often means lots of charts. Sometimes though, a chart isn’t what you need. Sarah Slobin, a graphics editor for the Wall…

Mushon Zer-Aviv offers up examples and guidance on lying with visualization. We don’t spread visual lies by presenting false data. That would be lying. We lie by misrepresenting the data…

Lance Hosey, for The New York Times, on design, beauty, and functionality. We think of great design as art, not science, a mysterious gift from the gods, not something that…

Pilot Mark Vanhoenacker describes the history and careful design of the everyday baggage tag, from the synthetic material it’s printed on, to the information each modern tag contains. Just as…

Some consider Nigel Holmes, whose work tends to be more illustrative, the opposite of Edward Tufte, who preaches the data ink ratio. Column Five Media asked Holmes about how he…

Stamen Design is the cover story of this month’s Icon Magazine. Well deserved. On infographics and the growing number of tools to make them: Stamen finds inspiration everywhere, but Rodenbeck…

Robert Kosara contrasts my version of the pay gap graphic with the NYT original and notes how small changes make a big difference in how a graphic reads. But what…

Kaiser Fung talks about the suck of overlaying plots to show a relationship. When the designer places two series on the same chart, he or she is implicitly saying: there…

The Washington Post asked three “young entrepreneurs” how their company uses infographics. They responded with similar sentiments. The first one said: Infographics can be great as part of presentations, newsletters…

James Cheshire ponders the difference between fast and slow thinking maps, and the dying breed of the latter. So do the renowned folks at the NY Times Graphics Dept. prefer…

After a chat with his color deficient friends about how Vincent van Gogh’s paintings seem to appeal to all eyes, Kazunori Asada used visual filters to see how the paintings…