Blog

Students Receiving Free and Reduced Meals: From Nested Donuts to an Icon Array

Dec 12th, 2018 / Data Visualization, Presentations

You’ve heard that pie charts are garbage data visualizations… but what about donut charts? Go behind the scenes as we transform nested donut charts into more accurate and engaging data visualizations.

How to Visualize Demographic Data: From Boring Bullet Points into Great Graphs

Sep 11th, 2018 / Data Visualization, Presentations

There’s nothing more boring than a slide full of bullet points! Bullet points scream, “I cared so little about my audience that I made these slides on the airplane last night.” In this article, I’ll share the step-by-step process I followed to get rid of bullet points and replace them with engaging visuals.

Pie Chart Makeover: Transforming a Research Report

Apr 25th, 2017 / Data Visualization, Reports

As I travel around giving data visualization workshops, I get to peek inside hundreds of attendees’ publications, slideshows, and spreadsheets (and then redesign them–the best part of my job). Here’s a before and after of a group’s (public-facing) research report.

When Pie Charts Are Okay (Seriously): Guidelines for Using Pie and Donut Charts

Dec 2nd, 2015 / Data Visualization

Should you avoid pie charts? Pie charts and donut charts are okay in some circumstances–when they meet all seven of my pie chart rules. Here are pie chart guidelines to follow, plus a bunch of pie chart alternatives so you know what to use instead.