Get off my shoulders, said the giant

Dear Stephen Few I’m writing this assuming that my book Data at Work was one of the targets of your post “Data Visualization Lite”. If that is the case, thank you for spending some of your time reading the book. When I started my humble blog, never in my wildest dreams I though that would … Read more

Two datavis book deals

A while ago I had this idea of asking Alberto Cairo to read the ebook I was planning to self-publish on my site. I asked Alberto because obviously he is one of the most respected experts in the datavis community as a whole but also because of practical reasons: the book was written in Portuguese … Read more

The structure of a data visualization book

There is no one-size-fits-all datavis, but most books are written from a very generic or a graphic design perspective, Stephen Few’s books being one of the exceptions. So, I decided to write an unsexy entry level data visualization book for the illiterate and artistically challenged spreadsheet user (I also wanted to know if I could come … Read more

My Personal Data Visualization Library

There are many approaches to data visualization. Take well-know authors like Tufte, Cleveland, Ware, Few, Bertin or McCandless. There is some overlap, but they all approach data visualization from a different angle. That’s great news for you: this means that you can come up with a unique point of view that reflects your interests and … Read more

Creating More Effective Graphs [Book Review]

If you are a graphic designer you already know too much about beauty and aesthetics. If you want to play with data it’s time to grow up and learn some real graphs. I mean it. And I have the ideal book you: Creating More Effective Graphs, by Naomi B. Robbins. First Impressions Color: No color; … Read more

Excel Game Changers

You can learn a lot from an expert, but a game changer challenges your believes and assumptions and, at some point, that’s exactly what you need to move forward. Creative destruction. I love it. Let me tell you about three of my personal Excel game changers. Jon Peltier Well, I don’t have to tell you … Read more

No, Tufte’s Charts Are not Plain and Simple

A new data visualization research paper finds that chart junk does not harm accuracy and actually improves recall. The paper is an interesting read but, unfortunately, not for the right reasons. I’ll discuss the paper in an upcoming post. Today I just want to comment a sentence from the introduction: “This minimalist [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column … Read more

I’m Leaving my Day Time Job

Yes, I’m leaving in May. Things (economy-wise) don’t look pretty, and leaving a steady job may seem unbearably self-indulgent. So, why I’m I doing this? Yes, I was unhappy, and yes, money is important too. But there’s something else. Tom says I have a mission. Well, I don’t take myself that seriously, but I do … Read more