Design  / 

Guides for Visualizing Reality

We like to complain about how data is messy, not in the right format, and how parts don’t make sense. Reality is complicated though. Data comes from the realities. Here are several guides to help with visualizing these realities, which seem especially important these days.

Visualizing Incomplete and Missing Data

We love complete and nicely formatted data. That’s not what we get a lot of the time.

Visualizing Outliers

Step 1: Figure out why the outlier exists in the first place. Step 2: Choose from these visualization options to show the outlier.

Visualizing Differences

Focus on finding or displaying contrasting points, and some visual methods are more helpful than others.

Visualizing Patterns on Repeat

Things have a way of repeating themselves, and it can be useful to highlight these patterns in data.

 

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How I Made That: Searchable Time Series Chart

When there are too many options or categories, it can be helpful to make the data searchable.

Calendar Heatmaps to Visualize Time Series Data

The familiar but underused layout is a good way to look at patterns over time.

How to Make a US County Thematic Map Using Free Tools

There are about a million ways to make a choropleth map. The problem is that a lot of solutions require expensive software or have a high learning curve. It doesn’t have to be that way.

How to Make Bubble Clusters in R

Represent individual counts with grouped units to make data feel less abstract.

Favorites

The Stages of Relationships, Distributed

Everyone’s relationship timeline is a little different. This animation plays out real-life paths to marriage.

A Day in the Life of Americans

I wanted to see how daily patterns emerge at the individual level and how a person’s entire day plays out. So I simulated 1,000 of them.

19 Maps That Will Blow Your Mind and Change the Way You See the World. Top All-time. You Won’t Believe Your Eyes. Watch.

Many lists of maps promise to change the way you see the world, but this one actually does.

How the American Work Day Changed in 15 Years

The American Time Use Survey recently released results for 2018. That makes 15 years of data. What’s different? What’s the same?