Nick Desbarats

Two pie charts side by side, the left one with a smiley face drawn on top, the right one with a vomiting face of disgust.H
Nick Desbarats

Have I Resolved the Pie Chart Debate?

To use pie charts or not, that is the question! Here are a few arguments in favor of pie charts that have been missing from the debate.
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Nick Desbarats

Connected Scatterplots Make Me Feel Dumb

Connected scatterplots are often used to show the relation between two variables over time. Why use them when there are better alternatives?
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Nick Desbarats

Why I Stopped Using Bullet Graphs (and What I Now Use Instead)

tl;dr: After teaching many data professionals about bullet graphs and using them in many dashboards, I started to notice that they had a fair number..
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Nick Desbarats

Are Vertical Line Charts Ever a Good Idea?

I recently asked dataviz Twitter if anyone could point to situations in which a vertical line chart was the best chart type for that situation...
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Nick Desbarats

A Map of Data Visualization (For Discussion!!)

The data visualization field is fascinating and I feel incredibly fortunate to be working in it, but, frankly, it’s also kind of a mess: It’s..
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Nick Desbarats

Does Data Visualization Have Rules? Or Is It All Just “It Depends”?

tl;dr: In the data visualization community, there are those who believe that there are universal rules such as “Never use pie charts”, or, “Always include..
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Nick Desbarats

I’ve Stopped Using Box Plots. Should You?

tl;dr: After having explained how to read box plots to thousands of workshop participants, I now believe that they’re poorly conceived (box plots, not workshop..