Intro to Data Visualisation
Data-Driven Journalism
"Communicating
complex data and
intricate ideas through
clear and beautiful
visual storytelling."
- Tobias Sturt – Design Manager, The Guardian Digital Agency
http://www.100yearsofworldcuisine.com/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2012/may/08/gay-rights-united-states
http://partylines.theglobalmail.org/
http://www.smh.com.au/data-point/census-2012
http://connectedchina.reuters.com/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/dec/04/government-spending-department-2011-12
http://www.visualisingdata.com/index.php/
2013/04/discussion-storytelling-and-
success-stories/
http://awesome.good.is/transparency/web/
0906/trans0609largestbankruptciee s.html
http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s3694586.htm
What Makes a Good Infographic?
•  Data
•  Design
•  Story
•  Shareability
http://dashburst.com/chart/what-makes-a-good-infographic/
Story
•  Data visualisations may be
–  Insightful vs Infotainment
–  Exploratory vs Explanatory
Design
•  Graphical layout and design
–  Colours & Typeface
–  Proximity & placement
–  Accessibility
•  Interaction / User Experience Design
–  Static vs interactive
–  Mobile device / touch support?
•  Custom design vs using existing tools and
visualisation techniques
http://visualizing.org/stories/taxonomy-data-visualization
http://www.visual-literacy.org/periodic_table/periodic_table.html
Data
•  Data Sources
–  Open Data e.g. http://data.gov.au/
–  Scraping e.g. https://scraperwiki.com/
–  Cite your data sources!
•  Preparing Data:
–  Filter & Clean
–  Tools:
•  DataWrangler,
•  OpenRefine
•  CSVKit https://github.com/onyxfish/csvkit
•  Tabula
http://source.mozillaopennews.org/en-US/articles/introducing-tabula/
Online
App
Tool
Tool
Data Wrangler
Online App: http://vis.stanford.edu/wrangler/
Online
Open Refine
(Formerly Google Refine) http://openrefine.org/ App
Data Visualisation Tools
•  Off-the-shelf apps and services for creating:
–  Maps
–  Charts
–  Timelines
–  Network diagrams
–  And more…
MAPS
Color Brewer
http://colorbrewer2.com/ Online
Open Heat Map
http://www.openheatmap.com/ Online
Google Fusion Tables
https://drive.google.com/ Online
MapBox TileMill
http://mapbox.github.io/tilemill/index.html App
Basic Charts
•  Excel or OpenOffice.org Calc
•  Google Charts and Google Fusion Tables
–  http://imagecharteditor.appspot.com/
Online
App
Infogr.am
http://infogr.am/ Online
Data Wrapper
Onlinehttp://datawrapper.de/
Timelines
Google Fusion Tables
https://github.com/FlowingMedia/TimeFlow/wiki
App
Online
Time Flow
NETWORK DIAGRAMS
Gephi
http://gephi.org/ App
Many Eyes
http://www-958.ibm.com/software/analytics/manyeyes/ Online
AND MORE…
Many Eyes
Word clouds - Tagxedo
http://www.tagxedo.com/ Online
Tableau Public
http://www.tableausoftware.com/public/
(Windows only)
http://www.tableausoftware.com/public/gallery/making-pay-gap-look-good
http://www.tableausoftware.com/public/gallery/breaking-law-canadian-style
App
Shareability
•  Vector Graphics software:
–  Adobe Illustrator
–  Inkscape http://inkscape.org/
•  Publish zoomable infographics online:
–  http://www.closr.it/
–  http://zoom.it/
•  Tracking impact:
–  Google analytics http://www.google.com/analytics/
–  Pixel-ping http://documentcloud.github.io/pixel-ping/
App
App
Online
Online
Online
Tool
Advanced Techniques
•  For creating custom, interactive
visualisations (some coding required):
–  R http://www.r-project.org/
–  Processing http://processing.org/
–  Visualisation code libraries e.g.
• Data-Driven Documents (D3) http://d3js.org/
• Prefuse http://prefuse.org/
Resources
•  Videos:
–  http://datajournalism.stanford.edu/
–  http://teachingtosee.org/film/TeachingToSee.html
•  Podcast:
–  http://datastori.es/
•  Websites:
–  http://www.visualizing.org/
–  http://visual.ly/
–  http://flowingdata.com/
–  http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/
–  http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/
Books
•  Data Journalism Handbook
–  http://datajournalismhandbook.org/1.0/en/
•  The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and
Selling Ideas with Pictures - Dan Roam
•  The Wall Street Journal Guide to Information
Graphics: The Dos and Don'ts of Presenting Data,
Facts, and Figures - Donna M. Wong
•  Show Me the Numbers: Designing Tables and
Graphs to Enlighten - Stephen Few

Intro to data visualisation