Nathan Yau

The Myth of ‘Dumbing Down’

Statistics / audience, communication

For The Atlantic, Ian Bogost on communicating complex ideas to an audience:
One…

How Charts Lie

Visualization / Alberto Cairo, misleading

Charts can reveal truths that we never would see otherwise, but they can…

Visualizing the Friends sitcom

Infographics / Friends, television

Marion Rouayroux, a graphic designer and a big fan of the show Friends,…

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How to Use IPUMS Extraction Tools to Download Survey Data

Tutorials / IPUMS

Almost all of my visualization projects that use data from the Census Bureau comes via IPUMS. In this guide, I provide five steps to getting the data you need using their tools.

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Analysis as Detective Work (The Process #62)

The Process / analysis, messy

Analysis and visualization are often a messy process that never matches up to the step-by-step guides you read, but that’s normal.

Cleaning your data with Excel and Google Spreadsheets

Software / cleaning, Excel, Lisa Charlotte Rost, spreadsheet

For Datawrapper, Lisa Charlotte Rost outlines the steps to prepare and clean your…

Photographs from above, an Overview

Data Art / photography, satellite imagery

Overview is an ongoing project that uses a zoomed out view for a…

Mapping When and Where People Start their Commute

Data Underload / commute

For commuters, the farther away you live from the workplace, the earlier you have to leave your house to get to work on time. How much does that start time change the farther out you get?

How data changes the design process at every stage

Design / process, real data

On Multiple Views, the Interactions Lab talks about their experience as a design…

Scientology city takeover

Maps / Scientology, Tampa Bay Times

For Tampa Bay Times, Tracey McManus and Eli Murray delve into the purchasing…

Microsoft’s visual data explorer SandDance open sourced

Software / Microsoft, open-source, SandDance

Microsoft just open sourced their data exploration tool known as SandDance:
For those…

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Less Time With Methods, More Time With Questions and Context (The Process #61)

The Process / context, Kevin Durant, Nate Silver, questions

Data represents the real world, and visualization represents data. But sometimes data and the real world disagree with each other.

Techniques for adding context to visualization

Design / context, Richard Brath, talk

[arve url=”https://vimeo.com/304321201″ /]
When it comes to meaningful visualization, context is everything. Richard…

How Much Commuting is Too Much?

Data Underload / commute, threshold, work

One person’s long commute is another’s dream. Another person’s normal might be someone else’s nightmare. What counts as a long commute depends on where you live.