Almost as often as I see a pie chart with a hundred tiny slivers, I see line graphs using two y-axes. And it is just as bad. Graphs like this appear in every industry, everywhere I consult all around the globe. Using two y-axes is not a great idea…
HEY THERE: This checklist is now a website where you can upload your image and we will walk you through each checkpoint, helping you rate yourself. This post has been a long time coming. We knew that people had a thirst for better…
Update: After a successful Kickstarter campaign where we raised over 1,000% of our goal, the cards are in production and you can now order a deck, an infographic, and our templates from our permanent website. Thanks for your support, lovely people. Chart Chooser cards are simple and easy…
If you do nothing else to improve a weak visualization, you’ll still seriously improve its interpretability by giving it an awesome title. Generally we use weak titles that don’t really tell us the point of the visualization: I think this is because we make our graphs in Excel,…
The Data Visualization Academy is only open for enrollment twice a year. Come get select access to my best data visualization tutorials and advice. Four years ago today, I took the leap from salaried employee to independent consultant. Since then, I’ve worked with scores of organizations to help them use…
I love when readers send me questions that I can turn into blog posts. The question: We often make our graphs in Excel and pop them in to reports or slides, but the transfer usually causes the formatting to get all wonky. How can we get print-quality graphics out of…
The least helpful timelines I’ve ever seen are these: where time is basically bulleted, as if each of these intervals is equidistant and as if a bunch of text is the best way to communicate something inherently not based in narrative. You are basically saying, this journey is…
I help people design the best visual supports for streamlined conversations and decision-making. That’s just what New Client needed. He called to say “I need to look great at this meeting.” And by the time he got to that meeting, he looked great *and* he presented his qualitative and quantitative data…
Why have I fallen in love with this graph type? I think its because its such a great way to visualize the comparison between two things, when one is inherently a part of the other. In recent client projects, I’ve used these to show actual v. budgeted amounts. Or individual…
Nicole contacted me with an email subject line: Thank you for the Data Viz Checklist! and she said she’d been using the checklist to overhaul some of her organization’s data visualizations. I’ve invited her here to showcase her before and afters. I’m Nicole Huggett and I recently transitioned…
