Gauges aren’t very popular in visualization, but they have some interesting properties. There is, of course, the infamous NY Times “election needle,” but you’re probably using gauges every day without giving them too much thought. There’s also an interesting connection with circular bar charts, which I think can work well when used as part-to-whole charts. I talk about all of this in my new video.
[Read more…] about New video: Gauges for Data Visualization, The NY Times Election Needle, and Circular Bar ChartseagereyesTV
New Video: The Science of Pie Charts
The common explanation for how pie charts work is that we read them by angle. That of course would mean that donut charts would be bad, because you can’t see the angle when you take away the center of the pie. Changing the radius of a slice wouldn’t matter though, because that doesn’t change the angle. But there is no evidence that angle is how we read pie charts, quite the opposite actually. In this new video, I walk through five reasons why angle is not how we read pies, and what that means for other things we like to assume about them.
[Read more…] about New Video: The Science of Pie Charts
New video: Chart Appreciation, Iraq’s Bloody Toll by Simon Scarr
How do you make people not just see numbers when looking at a chart, but feel something? This chart of the number of deaths during the Iraq war has always given me a visceral response like no other, and it’s still as powerful as when it was made almost ten years ago. So I made a chart appreciation video to explain what I think is so great about it.
[Read more…] about New video: Chart Appreciation, Iraq’s Bloody Toll by Simon Scarr
New Video: Linear vs. Quadratic Change
Scaling objects to represent a value is a key part of visualization, but it’s not without its pitfalls. Especially when it comes to fancy infographic bar charts, it can easily distort the value’s appearance. Why that is, and where else this can happen, isn’t always obvious. In my new video, I show how it happens and how to do it right – and how this issue inspired ISOTYPE.
[Read more…] about New Video: Linear vs. Quadratic Change
New video: Florence Nightingale’s Famous Rose Chart (aka “Coxcomb”)
It’s Florence Nightingale’s 201st birthday tomorrow! Since I missed her 200th, I figured I’d make a video about her famous chart. What made it tick? What was it about? Who was Nightingale, anyway?
[Read more…] about New video: Florence Nightingale’s Famous Rose Chart (aka “Coxcomb”)
New video: Chart Appreciation, Black vs. White Boys and The Punishing Reach of Racism
Dots fly across the screen, some of them moving up, some down. They represent black and white boys, and how their income differs from that of their parents and from each other. It’s a great way to show this data in an engaging way and without having to explain percentiles. This is a chart appreciation.
[Read more…] about New video: Chart Appreciation, Black vs. White Boys and The Punishing Reach of Racism
eagereyesTV: Minard’s Famous “Napoleon’s March” Chart – What It Shows, What It Doesn’t
This chart is a staple in every visualization course and many visualization talks. But what does it show, and what does it leave out? There’s a lot more to Napoleon’s Russian Campaign and to Charles Minard’s work than this one chart. My new video looks beyond the surface of what is perhaps the most famous chart out there.
[Read more…] about eagereyesTV: Minard’s Famous “Napoleon’s March” Chart – What It Shows, What It Doesn’t
Video Series: Counting In 2021 with Mechanical Calculators
Mechanical calculators are fascinating. I may have gone down a few rabbit holes on this topic earlier this year, and acquired a few. As a little celebration of the end of this year, and to start the new one, I’m creating a small series of videos about them and releasing one each week.
[Read more…] about Video Series: Counting In 2021 with Mechanical Calculators
eagereyesTV: Chart Appreciation, What’s Really Warming the World
Line charts – they’re not the most glamorous. And yet, they can be used to tell a compelling story about global warming. In this video, I talk about what I consider a modern classic of data journalism, What’s Really Warming the World by Eric Roston and Blacki Migliozzi: how it works, how it’s structured, and why it works so well.
[Read more…] about eagereyesTV: Chart Appreciation, What’s Really Warming the World
eagereyesTV: Index Charts, Part 2: Chopping Up and Folding the Time Axis
I covered the more commonly known value index charts in my my last video on index charts, this one is about indexing on the horizontal, or time, axis. It’s kind of fascinating how you can fold the time axis to get a better view of your data. I show how it works and walk through a number of examples, using housing prices, camera sales, global warming, and even data about my running!
[Read more…] about eagereyesTV: Index Charts, Part 2: Chopping Up and Folding the Time Axis