There is no way to think up an original and extraordinary design—it can only come as a result of pursuing a given task. In the same way running down a list of words is different from making a narrative.
— Artemy Lebedev, Designer’s block, February 16, 2010
This applies to visualization too. When you don't have a question to answer or a simple wonderment about something, you end up staring at a bunch of numbers with no clue what to do with them. Want to test this out? Go to data.gov and make something useful.
[via @Coudal]



Are you looking to get into data visualization, but don't quite know where to begin? 


Where are the biggest box office movies (not) streaming?
High-resolution maps of science
Find out what percent you are in
Backbone of the flavor network
Cinemetrics creates a visual fingerprint for movies
Vehicles involved in fatal crashes
World subway paths at scale
Visualize This