Do not repeat information in your visualisations. I repeat: Do not repeat information in your visualisations. Space is limited when you visualise data, and you need to make sure that every pixel is worth the space. If you repeat information in a figure, you are most likely using certain defaults and not repeating information consciously […]
Tag: dataviz
How to improve your figures #10: Do not use word clouds
In a previous post, I argued that people should not use pie charts. In this post I am going to make a similar case for word clouds. In short, I will argue that word clouds provide ‘foggy’ insights (pun intended). Specifically, I will discuss a word cloud that got a lot of attention in the […]
How to improve your figures #9: Use colourblind-friendly colours
Colours are often used in data visualisations to emphasise variation, ease interpretation and make them aesthetically pleasing. However, we do not all see colours in the same way and you should take this fact into account when you design figures. Specifically, as a start, you should make sure that everybody can actually see the variation […]
Årets første sommerdag
På Twitter delte DMI en figur med information om, hvornår vi hvert år i perioden 2005 til 2022 har haft årets første sommerdag (en maksimumtemperatur på over 25 °C). Figuren kan ses her: Jeg var ingenlunde imponeret over denne figur og ville sågar kalde den problematisk. Generelt har jeg det svært med figurer, der formidler […]
Visualisering af støtte til forskellige coronarestriktioner
Jeg har tidligere været kritisk overfor de figurer, der bliver delt ifm. håndteringen af coronapandemien. I dette indlæg giver jeg et eksempel på en figur, der (relativt) let kunne forbedres. Der er tale om en figur, der viser støtten til indførelsen af forskellige restriktioner (tilgængelig på side 5 i denne rapport): Problemet med figuren er, […]
How to improve your figures #4: Show labels
This is a brief follow-up post to my previous post with advice on how you can improve your figures. Can it be worse than showing variable names instead of actual labels on your figures? Yes. You can have no labels at all. Take a look at this article. It’s great and includes references to a […]
How to improve your figures #3: Don’t show variable names
When you plot a figure in your favourite statistical software, you will most likely see the name of the variable(s) you are plotting. If your income variable is called inc, your software will call the axis with income for inc and not income. In most cases variable names are not sufficient and you should, for […]