Basics

These articles cover the fundamentals: data, techniques, statistics, etc.

  • How The Rainbow Color Map Misleads

    How The Rainbow Color Map Misleads

    Colors are perhaps the visual property that people most often misuse in visualization without being aware of it. Variations of the rainbow colormap are very popular, and at the same time the most problematic and misleading.


  • Aspect Ratio and Banking to 45 Degrees

    Aspect Ratio and Banking to 45 Degrees

    The same data can look very different in a line chart depending on its aspect ratio. But what is the perfect shape for a chart? A square? A rectangle? Which rectangle? It depends on the data.


  • Continuous Values and Baselines

    Continuous Values and Baselines

    One of the most common mistakes people make when creating charts is to cut off the vertical axis. But why is that a problem? And what can you do when you need to show data where the amount of change is small compared to the absolute values?