Blog 2008
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Sightings: A Vennerable Challenge
Venn diagrams are a strange mix of structure and data visualization. In my latest Sightings column (PDF) for American Scientist, I use the example of a visualization challenge from last year to discuss different ways to show the same data about diagnosis techniques for autism in young children. This also sparked the launch of a new site feature: Ask Eagereyes.
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Charts and Metaphors
What do pies, waffles, and donuts have in common? They’re charts, or rather metaphors for popular charts. Why do we need to name charts after food? And what can we learn from this for getting the idea of visualization across more effectively?
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The Ethics of Business Presentations
I saw a presentation about business dashboard software by a guy from MicroStrategy yesterday, and started to wonder about the ethics of attribution in the business world. He showed a demo of a “bubble chart” that happened to be about fertility rate and life expectancy in different parts of the world over the last 20 years – in other words, Hans Rosling’s example and visualization. There was no attribution, he made it sound like he had come up with that himself.