Category Archives: Graphs
Worse Bar Chart Labels
I recently ran into this bar chart as part of a credit card summary. It took me a few moments to realize each run of superscripted digits was part of a single number, as opposed to indicating exponentiation or footnotes. … Continue reading
Lots of Dots Quilt
At a family gathering last month, Bonnie and I received an unexpected gift from my cousin the Polka Dot Debutante. She made this amazing quilt for us titled “Lots of Dots”: Being in the data visualization business, I can’t … Continue reading
Chapel Hill Election Clustering Revised
I’ve updated the cluster analysis based on comments received. Thanks to Ed Harrison, I have included data from the Durham County precincts. And since other commenters explained away the apparent under-voting in some precincts, I recalculated the percentages to be … Continue reading
Chapel Hill Election Clustering
Damon Seils provided some great maps of the precinct results from this month’s local elections. I played around with the data, and found the results of a two-cluster analysis to be interesting. The ballots don’t include party affiliation, but candidates … Continue reading
Numerals are Visualizations, too
I like looking at annual reports as a good source of data visualizations. Much of the typical report is just feel-good decoration, and the graphs usually fall into that category with lots of shine but little content. However, what caught … Continue reading
Dual-Scaled Graph Examples
Visualizations experts says it’s generally a bad idea to put two different vertical axes on a single graph (see Dual-Scaled Axes in Graphs — Are They Ever the Best Solution? [PDF]) since it invites comparison of data on different scales. … Continue reading
Burtin Antibiotic Illustrations
CHANCE magazine is running a contest to create the best illustration for a data set of the effectiveness of three antibiotics on sixteen strains of bacteria. Designer Will Burtin used this data set for a 1950s visualization. With only five … Continue reading