Archive for February, 2013

Naked Statistics

Friday, February 15th, 2013

I spend most of my time teaching people the basic concepts and skills of data visualization. You can’t learn data visualization by memorizing a set of rules. You must understand why things work the way they do. Stated differently, you must understand data visualization on a conceptual level. To engage in data sensemaking, which is […]

Big Data Disaster

Monday, February 11th, 2013

Access to lots of fast moving data without the thoughtful and ethical involvement of human beings spells disaster. A poignant example of this is the use of so-called Big Data by the three major credit agencies in America. Experian, Equifax, and Transunion have done great harm to the lives of millions of Americans through their […]

A Pie in the Face for Information Visualization Research

Tuesday, February 5th, 2013

Even though several research studies over the years have sought to compare the relative effectiveness of pie charts vs. bar graphs, only for one task have bar graphs failed to outperform pie charts. The one potential advantage of pie charts was identified in a study by Spence and Lewandowsky titled “Displaying Proportions and Percentages” (Applied […]