I love pie, I hate pie charts

by | Mar 21, 2015 | Uncategorized

Reading through Tableau’s recent white paper, Which Chart Or Graph Is Right For You, I was heartened to see this explanation of pie carts: Pie charts should be used to show relative proportions – or percentages – of information. That’s it. Despite this narrow recommendation for when to use pies, they are made with abandon. As a result, they are the most commonly mis-used chart type. If you are trying to compare data, leave it to bars or stacked bars. Don’t ask your viewer to translate pie wedges into relevant data or compare one pie to another. Key points from your data will be missed and the viewer has to work too hard. AMEN! If you have to create charts or graphs, or interpret data for work or fun, you should review this white...

Time and money will be wasted

by | Mar 19, 2015 | Uncategorized

This weekend 80 to 100 coders will join others at the Seattle Hack The Commute Hackathon. The one thing I can guarantee that will happen is time and money will be wasted. Some might say I am being negative, but I firmly believe there is no software that can solve the commute and traffic problems that Seattle is experiencing. How much money? Well, 100 coders who command an average rate of $100 will blow through $160,000 in (free) labor across 2 8 hour days. Let’s be clear, the problem is not construction, the problem is too many people want to drive private and often single occupancy vehicles to and from work in the central business district.  The problem is also that there are not sufficient fast and convenient public transit options.  Software cannot solve these two problems.  We need to fund more transit options and create serious disincentives for people to drive SOVs into the CBD every day. Here is my free advice: make parking cost a minimum of $25/day in the CBD. That will modify behavior. Pass a transit package that will increase frequency and reliability of mass transit. Build more mass transit with dedicate, grade separated right-of-way. We don’t need more hackathons with largely homogeneous groups of coders and tech people trying to solve problems with software that actually require policy...

The Circular Timeline, My Data Visualization Nemesis

by | Mar 18, 2015 | Uncategorized

In a few recent presentations/trainings that I’ve given through my work at Resource Media on the topic of data visualization, I’ve pointed to one particular circular timeline visualization that drives me crazy. It’s the “sleep habits of geniuses” visualization that came out in the summer of 2014, and made the rounds on blogs and news sites.  I hate this visualization for the following reasons: It looks pretty but is not user friendly There is no significance to the color The viewer cannot easily determine the total number of hours of sleep for any one of the “geniuses” The area (and length) of each arc does not relate to the total number of hours, giving the visual impression that the people on the inner most part of the graphic have less sleep than the those on the outside of the graphic, even if they have the same amount of sleep. The visual analogy is of a clock face, but rather than showing only 12 hours, it shows 24 The white/black background is split 12 to 12 rather than 6 to 6 which would be more aligned with day/night. When I raised these critiques at the Seattle Tech4Good Meetup, one of my co-presenters, Ben Jones from Tableau pointed me at this Tableau Viz, which turns the data into more of a bar chart and adds some significance to the colors. I went a little less artsy and more utilitarian with my version of the genius data visualization. I was happy to find a specialist in data visualization and design, Alberto Cairo, voice some of the same concerns about another circular...

Thinking about Data Visualization

by | Mar 18, 2015 | Uncategorized

I’ve been getting deeper into data visualization, and will probably work on sharing more about it here on the site. But for starters, I wanted to share this quote I found in an article/book review about infographics (the author, Steven Heller, is no relation). This is the paragraph that I thought was best, and the emphasis is mine: Data visualization has been used as a visual shorthand in newspapers, magazines, and textbooks since the 19th century, if not earlier, Heller writes. But in the Internet age, infographics are more useful than ever. “Their popularity now has to do with the fact that we’re being bombarded by media and data, and there are so many different ways of addressing, analyzing, and serving that data,” Heller says. So often, this excessive information is conveyed sloppily, thoughtlessly, without enough attention to the reader’s experience. That’s what makes it so important to understand how deliberate infographic designers are about their process: many graphics look deceptively simple, but great visualizations aren’t whipped up in an instant; they’re planned impeccably, as these sketchbooks...

Share Vs. Rent

by | Mar 17, 2015 | Uncategorized

I am constantly surprised  (and a little dismayed) when an article that is ostensibly about sharing, and the sharing economy talks about renting. This quote,”You could start to equalize standards of living if you allow people who have a lot of stuff to comfortably rent out things to people who don’t,” from  Arun Sundararajan, and NYU researcher, is even more alarming. The article I lifted the quote from is on FastCoExist, “How The Sharing Economy Could Help the Poorest Among Us” How does it help the poorest among us for those who have stuff to charge the poor to use it. That sounds pretty much like the world we live in now. The paradigm shift (and I hope the quote was taken out of context) is when those who have stuff will lend it to those who don’t have stuff, ideally NOT for money. IE Share the stuff with people, not rent the stuff to people. Originally Posted on...

Share Vs Rent

by | Mar 16, 2015 | Uncategorized

I am constantly surprised  (and a little dismayed) when an article that is ostensibly about sharing, and the sharing economy talks about renting. This quote,“You could start to equalize standards of living if you allow people who have a lot of stuff to comfortably rent out things to people who don’t,” from  Arun Sundararajan, and NYU researcher, is even more alarming. The article I lifted the quote from is on FastCoExist, “How The Sharing Economy Could Help the Poorest Among Us” How does it help the poorest among us for those who have stuff to charge the poor to use it. That sounds pretty much like the world we live in now. The paradigm shift (and I hope the quote was taken out of context) is when those who have stuff will lend it to those who don’t have stuff, ideally NOT for money. IE Share the stuff with people, not rent the stuff to...

Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 Rules For Writing Fiction

by | Feb 25, 2015 | Uncategorized

I love these, and I don’t even write fiction, but I think they can apply to nonfiction too. Especially 1, 2, 7, and 8: Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 Rules For Writing Fiction Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water. Every sentence must do one of two things – reveal character or advance the action. Start as close to the end as possible. Be a sadist. Now matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them – in order that the reader may see what they are made of. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages. – Vonnegut, Kurt Vonnegut, Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons 1999), 9-10. Kurt Vonnegut: How to Write with...

Planning a panel that pops

by | Apr 11, 2014 | Uncategorized

Originally posted on the Resource Media blog: Picture this: You are at a conference and sitting in a panel session and get that sinking feeling that you chose the wrong session. Your first signal is the lengthy introductions given by the moderator for each panelist, each taken verbatim from the bios in your conference packet. Then each panel member talks for several minutes, leaving little time for questions. The remaining minutes are taken up by the moderator, who asks a few disjointed questions before time’s up, no time for audience questions. Let’s face it: Panels are hard. Harder than solo presentations where the presenter is in near complete control of the session. But with the right preparation and design, panels can be truly enlightening and informative sessions. Here are some tips to help you plan a panel that pops! Pick the right people. We all know that some people are just better at presenting in front of an audience than others.  When you have two or three people up in front of a room, the contrast between great presenter and mediocre presenter is even more stark. Try to pick people that have good presentation styles, and can present with similar levels of enthusiasm, otherwise you risk having one panel member completely dominate the others, or make the others look “bad.” Prepare, yourself. Set aside the necessary time to prepare for the panel yourself. This may involve reading books or articles, or watching videos by your panelists. It can also include soliciting input from your intended audience. You may want to invite people to submit their own ideas for questions...