This is No. 414 of The Process. I’m Nathan Yau, and this week we get into specifics for annotation on line charts to draw attention and communicate patterns more clearly.

In this week’s The Process, we look at the ones that highlight the big shifts and see how changing focus can change the story.

Every month, I gather tools and resources to make better charts that communicate and reveal. Here is what happened in October.

This week, we switch the chart defaults to non-defaults.

This week, I walk through my own thinking as I poke at fresh data.

This week is about helping data stand out in the land of many points.

This week is about finding your way by getting lost in the data.

Here’s what happened in September.

This week, there were a lot of trade-offs between utility and aesthetics. How do you find the balance?

This week is about adapting our visualization workflow as the tools change dramatically.

This week, I describe the many small choices one must make while working on a set of charts.

Here is what happened in August.

This week is about changing perspectives so we can find and visualize new insights.

This week, we talk flimsy results and how to work on things that build trust over content.

This is issue No. 400 of the Process. Four hundred. It only took me eight years.

Here is what happened in July.

This week, we talk colors and categories.

This week, I provide an update on my own process from start to finish, in 2026.

This week, a bar chart was the wrong choice.

This week, a framework of AI agents enter the game to automate all the steps of data to charts to insight. We’re not cooked, yet.