Why Data Types and Measurement Scales? Data types are important in data visualization as they determine the visualization method or chart type. In other words, we need to know what type of variable we are dealing with in order to choose the most suitable chart type. Having a good understanding of different types of data…
In this tutorial, we will see how to add conditional colouring to scatterplots in Excel. I came across this trick when I was creating scatterplots for an article on Gestalt laws. I wanted the dots on the plot to be in 3 different colours based on which group they belonged to. There isn’t a straightforward way…
Gestalt is German for “Unified Whole”. Gestalt psychologists Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka and Wolfgang Kohler sought to understand how we humans make sense of what we see from the chaotic stimuli around us. Their findings were that we seek to form patterns, group objects in particular ways and simplify complex images. The main principle of…
When working with data, it is important to understand the purpose of data analysis. Though the end result of a data analysis process may be a single visualization, there are various stages this analysis goes through. Broadly, there are 2 types of data analysis: Exploratory analysis – Exploratory analysis is often the first step of…
Reporters from the Center for Investigative Reporting sought employee diversity data from 211 technology companies in San Fransisco. A couple of dozen companies shared their data. Here is a visualization of how race and gender diversity for 23 companies in Silicon Valley. The data was analysed using R and the visualization is using d3.js.
Pie charts are the most controversial charts in Data Visualization. With arguments ranging from don’t use pie charts ever to let’s use them when appropriate, there are a lot of opinions on pie charts. Rightly so. Because there is so much we still do not understand about pie charts and let’s face it, there are…
9This series is a collection of small changes in data visualization that make a big difference to the end result. In this article we cover two of the most underrated elements of a graph – Tick marks and Gridlines. What are tick marks and gridlines? Tick marks and gridlines do not represent values themselves. They…