Data visualization is a tool that is applicable in many industries. Some visualizations are made to help business owners make decisions, some to help reporters perform analysis to make discoveries. But what takes a visualization, or interactive piece, from something that helps a news producer, to something that helps a news consumer, requires someone who understands what a user is looking for Read More...
At Medill, there's a wonderful tradition called the "Medill F." Make a factual error of any sort, and you fail the assignment. The sadistic part of me likes it -- a journalist's job is to tell the truth. If you miss the mark, you've failed the public, and failed at your job for the day. Harsh but true Read More...
"Visual and Statistical Thinking: Displays of Evidence for Making Decisions," Edward Tufte, Visual Explanations This chapter gave practical examples of something I've been saying from almost the first day of my data analysis journey -- that it's absolutely fundamental that the decisions behind the analysis are shown to the reader/user Read More...
For the past week, we've been hearing a lot of media coverage focusing on issues both encouraging and discouraging, looking with excitement at the beginning of a new decade. But what captured my attention most recently was the release of unemployment figures from the end of 2009. If you look at the glass as half full, it's got to go up from here sometime soon, and if you look it as half empty, we're not starting in a strong economic place Read More...
In this first set of reading, I learn that the principles of simplicity, accuracy and more are as true in data visualization as they are in a text story. Edward Tufte, Visual Explanations, "Images and Quantities" In Tufte's first paragraph of Visual Explanations, he discusses the importance of readability -- a concept I see as having a strong parallel to the usability so often discussed in a more modern era Read More...
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