Your boss requested an pressing report that exhibits the traits of key metrics in Google Analytics. You should find the info and create a number of charts. What sort of charts must you select? What colours must you use? Must you create a dashboard? Or perhaps a narrative?
An understanding of information visualization informs all of those selections. Listed here are three books to get began.
Important Information Visualization Books
Storytelling with Information by Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic
Storytelling with Information
“Storytelling with Information” ignited my ardour for knowledge visualization. The ebook is accessible for newcomers and is structured round six key knowledge visualization ideas:
- Perceive the context,
- Select an acceptable visible show,
- Remove litter,
- Focus consideration on the place you need it,
- Suppose like a designer,
- Inform a narrative.
Every chapter covers one knowledge visualization lesson and contains many easy, sensible examples, in addition to step-by-step directions. “Storytelling with Information” supplies a superb basis to arrange for superior knowledge visualization matters. A key passage within the ebook:
What do you want your viewers to know or do? That is the purpose the place you assume by way of tips on how to make what you talk related on your viewers and type a transparent understanding of why they need to care about what you say.
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Avoiding Information Pitfalls by Ben Jones
Avoiding Information Pitfalls
Too typically, we consider knowledge visualization solely from a design perspective. Nonetheless, the design course of is the center step. We first want a transparent understanding of the info itself. “Avoiding Information Pitfalls” is a useful useful resource to extend knowledge literacy. It’s a simple learn, full of examples. The creator supplies a construction for fascinated by knowledge and avoiding seven frequent pitfalls:
- “Epistemic [knowledge] errors,”
- “Technical trespasses,”
- “Mathematical miscues,”
- “Statistical slipups,”
- “Analytics aberrations,”
- “Graphical gaffes,”
- “Design risks.”
Right here’s a favourite paragraph within the ebook:
However when is a given knowledge set clear sufficient? Like a kitchen countertop, it could possibly at all times be cleaner. We hit some extent of diminishing returns in our preparation of any knowledge set, although, the place extra elbow grease and scrubbing doesn’t yield enough incremental profit to warrant the effort and time.
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Information We Belief by RJ Andrews
Information We Belief
What comes after a visualization — the storytelling piece — is simply as important as the info earlier than it. “Information We Belief,” revealed in 2019, teaches knowledge storytelling. The ebook doesn’t embrace how-tos. As a substitute, it convinces the reader that knowledge is gorgeous. The ebook supplies a deep understanding of why and the way we inform tales with knowledge — addressing historical past, philosophy, and human psychology. The ebook additionally comprises fascinating illustrations, all drawn by the creator.
“Information We Belief” is a dive deep into the artwork of storytelling. It’s in contrast to some other knowledge visualization ebook.
Right here’s an excerpt:
To harness knowledge, the world wants data: extra data, higher data, extra advanced and extra nuanced understanding, and higher narratives that may present methods for all to flourish. […] To be a knowledge storyteller is to be a creator, a maker, a constructor. We don’t simply make data, however new and enthusiastic visions of how issues are and the way they is likely to be.
Broad Perspective
The three books present a broad perspective and a deeper perception into the craft and science of information visualization. “Storytelling with Information” addresses design points. “Avoiding Information Pitfalls” stresses the significance of understanding the info. And “Information We Belief” explains the significance of information storytelling.