Before we had D3 and all this fancy web technology, interactive news pieces on the web were usually built using Adobe Flash. Since the demise of Flash, they have all benn broken, but now the NY T...
Rainbow colormaps are among the most derided ideas in data visualization, second only to pie charts. And yet, people use them. Why? A recent paper looks at some of the reasons why they are so pop...
https://eagereyes.org/blog/2023/rainbow-colormaps-are-not-all-bad-paper
Computational notebooks offer an alternative to the common GUI-based tools used for data visualization and BI today. In this new paper, I talk about what they are, their pros and cons, and how re...
https://eagereyes.org/blog/2023/paper-notebooks-for-data-analysis-and-visualization
I'm teaching a short course on data visualization for Observable. It's free, and you should join! Starts March 7.
https://eagereyes.org/blog/2023/course-on-data-vis-fundamentals-and-best-practices
Josh On's They Rule is back, and I've made a video about it.
https://eagereyes.org/blog/2023/new-video-exploring-the-connections-between-companies-with-they-rule
This site has been around for over 16 years now, and a lot has changed in the world during that time. I'm currently working on an overhaul and wanted to give everybody an idea of what I'm thinkin...
https://eagereyes.org/blog/2022/site-changes-coming-how-to-follow-sites-and-where-ive-been
Of the several AI-powered systems that can create images from text prompts, MidJourney is the most easily accessible one right now. I've had some fun playing with it.
Gauges aren't very popular in visualization, but they have some interesting properties. There is, of course, the infamous NY Times "election needle," but you're probably using gauges every day wi...
I gave a talk at the Outlier conference earlier this year, with the somewhat elaborate title, The Joys – and Dangers – of Bespoke and Unusual Chart Types. Though I eventually decided to go wi...
https://eagereyes.org/blog/2022/watch-my-outlier-talk-this-should-have-been-a-bar-chart
Encodings play a central role in visualization, but I believe our thinking about them is too simplistic. In a new paper, I argue that we need to distinguish between the encodings that specify how...
A bar chart with a distorted vertical axis isn't very unusual. But what if that chart was posted by the White House and what if it was done on purpose – not to overstate the number shown, but r...
https://eagereyes.org/blog/2022/the-possible-stratagem-behind-the-biden-bar
An opinion piece in the New York Times last week got a lot of attention in visualization circles for its use of a spiral chart as its opener. While the choice of chart and color scheme can be deb...
https://eagereyes.org/blog/2022/the-ny-times-covid-spiral-is-off-center
The common explanation for how pie charts work is that we read them by angle. That of course would mean that donut charts would be bad, because you can't see the angle when you take away the cent...
https://eagereyes.org/blog/2021/new-video-the-science-of-pie-charts
Who are the people who use data and visualization as part of their work every day? In particular, how do people use data as part of meetings, to present to others, to discuss their findings and r...
EagerEyes is 15 years old today! Rather than look back at 15 years of visualization and blogging (though I will do a little of that too), I want to reflect a bit on what blogging means today and ...
Can you put ranked data into a pie chart that also represents time? This chart tries, and I think it succeeds.
https://eagereyes.org/blog/2021/can-a-timeline-pie-chart-work
How do you make people not just see numbers when looking at a chart, but feel something? This chart of the number of deaths during the Iraq war has always given me a visceral response like no oth...
https://eagereyes.org/blog/2021/new-video-chart-appreciation-iraqs-bloody-toll-by-simon-scarr
We all agree that the direction of the bars in a bar chart should correspond to the direction in which the values grow. Or do we? When it comes to running or audio recording and processing, it tu...
https://eagereyes.org/blog/2021/when-the-wrong-chart-is-the-right-choice
Scaling objects to represent a value is a key part of visualization, but it's not without its pitfalls. Especially when it comes to fancy infographic bar charts, it can easily distort the value's...
https://eagereyes.org/blog/2021/new-video-linear-vs-quadratic-change
It's Florence Nightingale's 201st birthday tomorrow! Since I missed her 200th, I figured I'd make a video about her famous chart. What made it tick? What was it about? Who was Nightingale, anyway...
https://eagereyes.org/blog/2021/new-video-florence-nightingales-famous-rose-chart-aka-coxcomb