Category Archives: Data Visualization

Comprehensive list of books on data visualization

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We follow the Storytelling With Data blog by Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic (and you should too).

Her most recent post, many paths to learning data viz, is a goldmine of information. The podcast includes a lengthy list of books and other resources that we have linked below.

We’ve blogged a bunch about data visualization as it relates to planning and Gantt charts, but our thirst for insight on this topic is insatiable.

Below is the list from Nussbaumer Knaflic’s blog, but it is not exhaustive of what is out there.

What has been your most helpful book on data viz that you would recommend your colleagues read?

Andrews, Info We Trust
Bertin, Semiology of Graphics
Brinton, Graphic Presentation
Cairo, The Functional Art
Cairo, The Truthful Art
Cleveland, The Elements of Graphing Data
Cleveland, Visualizing Data
Few, Information Dashboard Design
Few, Now You See It
Few, Show Me the Numbers
Kleon, Steal Like an Artist
Knaflic, storytelling with data
Kriebel & Murray, #MakeoverMonday
Meeks, D3.js in Action
Robbins, Creating More Effective Graphs
Robinson, et. al, The Elements of Cartography
Tukey, Exploratory Data Analysis
Tufte, Beautiful Evidence
Tufte, Envisioning Information
Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
Tufte, Visual Explanations
Schwabish, Better Presentations
Slocum, Thematic Cartography and Geovisualization
Wainer, Visual Revelations: Graphical Tales of Fate and Deception…
Ware, Information Visualization: Perception for Design
Wexler, Shaffer, Cotgreave, The Big Book of Dashboards
Zelazny, Say It With Charts

Displaying Risk in OnePager – Heatmaps

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It’s not very often that you might need to look at your entire plan to pick out some sort of pattern. Analyzing our project data is usually not as simple as that.

However, when you’re looking to evaluate the timing of your risk and exposure to outside forces, it becomes important to step back and view the entire project.

In Stephen Few’s book Now You See It: Simple Visualization Techniques for Quantitative Analysis, the chapter on Time-Series Analysis and Heatmaps is very relevant to this specific data visualization in OnePager.

Heatmaps, according to Few, are “any display that uses color to encode quantitative values.” Below is an example of a traditional heatmap.

Election Results

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Trellis Displays Using OnePager

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We often see very complex visuals, built by our users, that include just about everything they intend to communicate, all in one place.

They’ve likely created the complexity either because it’s always been done that way, or it’s what they were asked to produce (not necessarily their fault), though data visualization best practices will tell us that too many dimensions of information in one place will all blend together into an aggregate.

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Aptitudes and Attitudes of Effective Analysis – Stephen Few

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Ever since we began including a section on data visualization in our formal training, we’ve only gotten one negative piece of feedback. The particular attendee suggested something like “I could have done without the content on how to make a PowerPoint slide.”

We welcome and take all feedback very seriously of course, but the comment came off as ironic given that in the training, I discuss the Dunning-Kruger Effect and its importance in successful data visualization in business today.

courtesy http://www.fun-stuff-to-do.com

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Case Study of an Aviation Industry Veteran and OnePager Expert

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Every now and again during interactions with users, the OnePager support team gets wowed. A OnePager chart will pop onto the screen and make an instant positive impression. The OnePager team likes to call these users “OnePager Van Goghs.”

Nancy Childress is one such Van Gogh, and a 39-year veteran of the aviation industry.

Read more about her and her experience with OnePager here.

Want to have your own OnePager Case Study? It’s a pretty simple process…please reach out to jleslie@onepager.com noting your interest.

Review: “The Big Book of Dashboards”

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Over the years, I have received countless requests from novice users to have me help them make their visuals look “pretty.” Pretty, as we know from studying data visualization best practices, has absolutely nothing to do with a good chart.

That said, after you’ve simplified your report, balanced your data ink, and eliminated any chart-junk, it can be a valuable exercise to attempt to achieve elegance in your visual design through some harmonic use of shapes, color, white space, font, etc.

Some people just have this gift: the artistic ability to use the elements they have available in a very eye-pleasing way. The rest of us need examples to follow, and for this, “The Big Book of Dashboards” provides plenty of inspiration.

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Animated Gantt Charts

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In last week’s post on project cost tracking, we happened to use an animated GIF of a OnePager Gantt chart to illustrate how project costs changed over time. Since then, several customers have reached out asking how to do the same thing.

These animated .gif files can be inserted into a SharePoint Image Web Part, PowerPoint documents, and other office documents, to be included in your reporting.

This week’s post will show you step-by-step instructions on how to animate your OnePager Gantt chart, like this:

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New Video: Best Practices – Data Visualization in Planning Part 1

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We’ve done quite a bit of research over the last few years into data visualization best practices, and the cognitive psychology of how people best absorb visual information. This two-part series is to summarize what we’ve learned so far, in an effort to help our audience be better communicators, and to foster conversation around making good charts in the planning community.

We hope you find it useful!

If this piques your interest, here is some continuing ed.

Data Visualization – Suggestions for A Fresh Design Phase

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One thing we’ve talked a lot about in the last year is that creating your visuals in planning (data visualization and plan communications) is a very specific area of study, and discipline.

photo credit: menshealth.com

Communications in business, generally, should be designed for optimal readability by their audience, to cut risk. Miscommunication in business is bad. This means we need to actually put some think-time and design-work into our plan-related communications.

If you and your organization haven’t circled back around just yet, to make sure you’re doing it right, this article might help give you some food for thought on how to retroactively initiate a design phase. Continue reading →