Population pyramids show population data by gender and age group. They are effective in showing changes over time. This chart of Japan demographics through 2050 appeared in The Economist: This shows three pyramids: Male on left, right hand side females from 1950, 2005, and 2050. (2050 is projection based on current trends). From 1950 to 2005, the pyramid …
Category Archives: Visualization
Featured Chart: Tokyo Metro Train Departures by Week
Infographic at Ginza Station, Tokyo on the Hibya Line. Left hand side shows weekday departures by hour (5am through 12 midnight) by minute. Right hand side shows Saturday and Holiday departures. It’s an effective graphic that also shows that weekdays have more frequent service, especially in the mornings between 8-9am, and it tapers off after …
Grasping data through physical models
Is it easier to glean insights from data using a physical model? Most of the advances in technology (data visualization, charting, interactive graphics) have made it much easier to get insights using on-screen imaging. By and large they have replaced physical construction and drawing of charts with rulers, compasses, and inks. But what if we used …
Using Flow Maps to show derivative products
Flow maps show branches of data which form part of a whole and are often used to show derivative products made from a single source. These were quite popular in the early 20th Century to show shipping traffic from ports. In this example it shows the components that contribute to the 3M stock price. Post-its and office produces …
Chart of the Week: Timeline+Segmentation+ Scatterplot
Information-dense charts show multiple relationships in data in a single, chart. They take more time to read/review, but provide deeper insights. This week’s example from R.W Brunskill’Illustrated Handbook of Vernacular Architecture shows the evolution of “vernacular architecture”. Vernacular architecture ” will have been designed by an amateur, probably of the occupier of the intended building and one …
your.Flowing Data: Capturing your life data
New web service: your.flowingdata enables you to capture events and activities in your life, track and visualize them. The goal is to understand life choices better. It’s an experimental project from Nathan Yao who runs the excellent data visualization site Flowing Data . Perhaps there will evolve into a journal similar to My Life in Graphs
Chart of the Week: Visualizing Multi-select survey questions
Visualizing multi-select survey questions (where the respondents can provide multiple answers) is challenging to summarize since pie charts and 100% bar charts do not work well since the parts can add up to be more than 100%. In the book Picturing the Uncertain World: How to Understand, Communicate, and Control Uncertainty through Graphical Display, the …
Book of the Week: The Periodic Table: Its Story and Significance
Organizing the chemical elements into regularly recuring categories was a major step in the history of chemisty. The Russian chemist Mendeleev played an important role in creating the modern periodic table, and looking at how he got there provides some ideas for organizing, classifying, and analyzing large data sets. First, the ideas around periodicity evolved over time. …
Area Proportional Venn Diagrams
Venn diagrams are great for understanding how sets intersect and relate to each other, but most don’t indicate quantity. So if you have a set that shows pet ownership (some own dogs, some dogs and fish,etc): With a proportional Venn diagram, you add the dimension of size or count. For example, People who own a dog+cats (ab) would …
New Tool: Graph Commons
Graph Commons is a new tool that I’m playing with. Similar to sites like Many Eyes, you can upload data, create graphs, and share with other community members. The tool focuses on network diagrams. Here’s an example of how a taxonomy for architectural types based on the book Isms: Understanding Architecture. I will try to visualize some of …