Yes, I know about the Malofiej awards and the Society for News Design. Yes, I know that there are many many designers out there that really care about the data and use their skills to communicate effectively, sometimes with awesome results. Sacrificing data on the altar of Beauty But for many many more, data is … Read more
Screencast: How to create a population pyramid in Excel. I am a big fan of screencasts, as a regular reader of this blog may have already noticed. They are great at showing how to use a tool to get something done and they are the best companions for tutorial (e-)books. This hypotetical regular reader might … Read more
You struggle every single day to design the best, the most eye-catching chart for the next presentation. If your goal is to impress your boss, you can stop reading, I have nothing new to offer, I can’t even impress mine. But if you really want to understand your data, there is some (hopefully) interesting stuff … Read more
An alarming level of the “what-would-Tufte-say” syndrome can be found in this post and some of its comments discussing a New York Times’s infographic. This syndrome has some recognizable features like the extensive use of “chart junk”, “lie factor” or other terms and expressions coined by Tufte that reveal a somewhat misunderstanding or abusive usage … Read more
Well, I must say I am a bit disappointed with the September issue of Stephen Few’s Visual Business Intelligence Newsletter. It discusses an important but much neglected topic, visualizing change through animation. Few’s paper was written for SAS Institute, and uses JMP, a statistical analysis product from them. From the screenshots, I wouldn’t say I … Read more
Part 1: The Beginning I just downloaded the trial (full-featured) version of Crystal Xcelsius Professional 4.5. This is a typical dashboard solution from a leading vendor and, although Stephen Few doesn’t like it I decided to buy it. Well, on one simple condition: by the end of the trial period I must have a working … Read more
I just added to the sidebar an Amazon widget with some recommended reading. These are my personal favorites (regarding information display) and I do recommend them. I’m just starting, so you’ll find my choices pretty obvious. There is also a new custom search engine. It starts with around 160 sites covering charts, presentation, (business) information … Read more
Excel dashboards and executive reports are powerful, fairly easy to design and a great way to improve your Excel and data visualization skills. Because of its flexibility, you can virtually design any dashboard in Excel exactly the way you, or the users, imagined. And, best of all, you may want to implement it yourself or … Read more
[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][Update: I posted a tutorial screencast that shows different population pyramids that can be created using Excel.] Let me assure you that this is not a post on how to make your … Read more
Charting, information visualization, business visualization, graphic literacy, dashboards, bad charts, good charts. How to do, why don’t do. Plus Excel and other tools. These are the topics you will find in this blog. That’s a promise. Although this is the beginning of a new blog, I’ve been writing about these things for the last 10 … Read more