List of topics
Art and data visualization
Big Data
Book reviews
Bullet graphs
Business Intelligence (BI)
Dashboard design
Data presentation, infographics, and quantitative storytelling
Data science
Data visualization and sensemaking education
Data visualization concepts and taxonomies
Data visualization research
Data visualization techniques and best practices
Data visualization tools
Examples of effective charts
Examples of ineffective charts and poor chart design
New or unfamiliar forms of data visualization
Perception and cognition
Principles of design
Self-Service Analytics
Sparklines
Specific chart types
Visual exploratory data analysis
Miscellaneous
Art and data visualization
Does Art Play a Role in Data Visualization? 2016 (blog)
Design vs. Art 2014 (blog)
Data Art vs. Data Visualization: Why Does a Distinction Matter? 2012 (blog)
Should Data Visualizations Be Beautiful? 2012 (blog)
Employment Opportunity: Art Director – Data Visualization 2011 (blog)
Information Visualization, Design, and the Arts: Collision or Collaboration? 2010 (newsletter)
Big Data
Basta, Big Data: It's Time to Say Arrivederci 2017 (blog)
The PBS (Public Bullshit) of Big Data 2016 (blog)
How Scalable Do Analytics Solutions Need to Be? 2015 (blog)
Data Scientists Do Scale 2015 (blog)
Big Dataclast: My Concerns about Dataclysm 2014 (blog)
This is your Brain on Big Data: A Review of "The Organized Mind" 2014 (blog)
If Big Data Is Anything at All, This Is It 2014 (blog)
The Three Vs and the Big O 2014 (blog)
Big Mouths on Big Data 2014 (blog)
Signal Detection: An Important Skill in a Noisy World 2013 (blog)
Big Data and the NSA 2013 (blog)
Are You a Data Scientist? 2013 (blog)
A More Thoughtful but No More Convincing View of Big Data 2013 (blog)
Big Data Disaster 2013 (blog)
The Slow Data Movement: My Hope for 2013 2013 (blog)
Big Data: A Pile of Nuts 2012 (blog)
Big Data, Big Errors in Prediction: Nate Silver's "The Signal and the Noise" 2012 (blog)
Big Data, Bad Math: Gartner Consults Its Crystal Ball 2012 (blog)
Big Data, Big Overload 2012 (blog)
Big Data, Big Deal 2012 (blog)
Big Data, Big Ruse 2012 (newsletter)
Do We Really Need More Data? 2009 (blog)
Book reviews
The Devaluation of Expertise 2017 (blog)
We Never Think Alone: The Distribution of Human Knowledge 2017 (blog)
Prove It, If You Can 2017 (blog)
Your Attention Has Been Traded in a Faustian Bargain 2017 (blog)
Algorithms as WMDs 2017 (blog)
Statisticians, Remember Your Native Tongue 2016 (blog)
Elusive Expertise 2016 (blog)
Drowning in the Shallows 2016 (blog)
Are You an Original? Do You Want to Be? 2016 (blog)
Averages Aren't What They Used to Be and Never Were 2016 (blog)
Tools for Smart Thinking 2016 (blog, Nick Desbarats)
Science and Probability Theory 2016 (blog)
Pundits Beware—Superforecasters Will Put You to Shame 2015 (blog)
Scientific Thinking 2015 (blog)
Mind the Gap or Die 2015 (blog)
Morality, Fast and Slow 2015 (blog)
Statistical Failures in Scientific Research 2015 (blog)
Big Dataclast: My Concerns about Dataclysm 2014 (blog)
Assessing Risk versus Uncertainty: A Review of "Risk Savvy" 2014 (blog)
Curiosity Trumps All: A Review of "Curious" by Ian Leslie 2014 (blog)
This is your Brain on Big Data: A Review of "The Organized Mind" 2014 (blog)
A Sure Path to Learning 2014 (blog)
Design for the Real World 2014 (blog)
Data Insights: Deep Thinking About Data Visualization 2014 (blog)
Driving and Walking: Time Enough for Thinking 2014 (blog)
The Scourge of Unnecessary Complexity 2013 (blog)
technology isn't spelled with a capital "T" 2013 (blog)
Big Data and the NSA 2013 (blog)
Predictive Analytics – Eric Siegel Lights the Way 2013 (blog)
A More Thoughtful but No More Convincing View of Big Data 2013 (blog)
Data Held Hostage 2013 (blog)
Naked Statistics 2013 (blog)
"Those that Don't Know History…" 2013 (blog)
Big Data, Big Errors in Prediction: Nate Silver's "The Signal and the Noise" 2012 (blog)
Here at Last, "The Functional Art" 2012 (blog)
Data Visualization and the Science of Magical Thinking 2012 (blog)
Visual Complexity: a review of Manuel Lima's new book 2011 (blog)
Decision Factories 2011 (blog)
Dyslexics Could Be Our Most Talented Data Visualizers 2011 (blog)
Buonomano Knows His Bugs and Yours Too 2011 (blog)
Designing with the Mind in Mind: A Brief Book Review 2011 (blog)
Effecting Change When Change Is Hard 2010 (blog)
What can the Wall Street Journal teach us about information graphics? 2010 (blog)
Sensemaking in a World of Shadows 2010 (blog)
Designing Effective Industrial Control System Displays 2009 (blog)
What Intelligence Tests Miss 2009 (blog)
Head First Data Analysis 2009 (blog)
Brain Rules—Required Reading in the Information Age 2009 (blog)
An Excellent Primer on Geo-spatial Analysis 2009 (blog)
At Last, a Scientific Approach to Infographics 2009 (blog)
"Picturing the Uncertain World" – A New Book on Statistical Graphics by Howard Wainer 2009 (blog)
Learn to Say What You Mean and Be Heard – Read "Why Business People Speak Like Idiots" 2009 (blog)
Failures in Analysis Are Failures in Thinking 2009 (blog)
Designing the User Interface 2009 (blog)
Visual Thinking for Design 2008 (blog)
Nudge Me Tender, Nudge Me True 2008 (blog)
Handbook of Data Visualization — Good content, but a dysfunctional publishing model 2008 (blog)
A clear signal in the midst of Excel-generated noise 2008 (blog)
Zen and the Art of Presentation 2008 (blog)
Apgar Scores and the Sometimes Unexpected Benefits of Measuring Things 2008 (blog)
Don't Let Your Brain Get in the Way 2008 (blog)
Geekonomics — Don't let the cute title fool you; this is serious stuff 2007 (blog)
Visual Statistics — A worthwhile new book, but one that is definitely for statisticians 2007 (blog)
The Ghost Map — Data visualization in the 19th century 2007 (blog)
"Sources of Power" in Data Visualization and Decision Making 2007 (blog)
Things That Make Us Smart 2007 (blog)
Sticky Stories Told with Numbers 2007 (newsletter)
Financial Intelligence 2006 (blog)
Beautiful Evidence: A Journey through the Mind of Edward Tufte 2006 (misc. articles)
Designing dashboards for "situation awareness" 2006 (blog)
Hard Facts: Why Are Business Decisions So Seldom Based On Them? 2006 (misc. articles)
Recommendations for Your Data Visualization Bookshelf 2006 (misc. articles)
Bullet graphs
Software Support for Bullet Graphs—An Increasingly Popular Means of Display 2009 (blog, Bryan Pierce)
Bullet Graphs for Not-to-Exceed Targets 2008 (blog)
Business Objects' Bullet Graphs: A Good Idea, Implemented Poorly 2007 (blog, Bryan Pierce)
Bullet graphs and sparklines for Excel 2006 (blog)
Bullet Graph Design Specification 2006 (misc. articles)
Business Intelligence (BI)
Building Better BI 2017 (blog, Paul Holland)
The Gullibility of BI Professionals 2012 (blog)
Big vs. Small BI: Size Really Doesn't Matter 2011 (blog)
Old BI and the Challenge of Analytics 2011 (blog)
BI Has Hit the Wall 2010 (blog)
Business Intelligence Industry – Get to Know Your Real Customers 2010 (blog)
Big BI is Stuck: Illustrated by SAP BusinessObjects Explorer 2010 (blog)
News Flash: BI Discovers the Obvious 2009 (blog)
Business Intelligence Thought Leaders and Objectivity 2009 (blog)
Business Intelligence—It's Time to Pass the Baton 2009 (blog)
About Face — Returning BI to Its Roots 2008 (blog)
Data Visualization and Analysis—BI's Blind Spots 2008 (blog)
Smarter BI 2006 (blog)
BI versus BA? Here we go again 2006 (blog)
Let's open our eyes–the importance of data visualization to BI 2006 (blog)
Discovering the Source of Business Intelligence Within 2005 (misc. articles)
Dashboard design
A d3 Version of My Student Performance Dashboard 2015 (blog)
Data Visualization and the Blind 2013 (blog)
2012 Perceptual Edge Dashboard Design Competition: A Solution of My Own 2013 (blog)
Best Practices for Scaling Sparklines in Dashboards 2012 (newsletter)
Control vs. the Illusion of Control: Which Works for You? 2012 (blog)
2012 Perceptual Edge Dashboard Design Competition: We Have a Winner! 2012 (blog)
Dashboard Design Requirements Questionnaire 2012 (misc. articles)
Patent Failure: The USPTO's Oversized but Undernourished New Dashboard 2010 (blog, Bryan Pierce)
The Vicious Cycle of Data Impoverishment 2010 (blog)
Assessing the Effectiveness of a New Dashboard's Design 2010 (blog)
Designing Effective Industrial Control System Displays 2009 (blog)
Federal CIO Dashboard: We Can and Should Do Better Than This 2009 (blog)
Xcelsius Developers Debate the Merits of "Flashy vs. Few" 2009 (blog)
With Dashboards, Formatting and Layout Definitely Matter 2008 (whitepaper)
A clear signal in the midst of Excel-generated noise 2008 (blog)
Ambient Orb — For those who don't have time for a dashboard 2007 (blog)
Taunts from the playground 2007 (blog)
Business Objects' Bullet Graphs: A Good Idea, Implemented Poorly 2007 (blog, Bryan Pierce)
Oracle/PeopleSoft Enterprise Service Dashboard — A disservice to people who desperately need better 2007 (blog)
Dashboard Design for Real-Time Situation Awareness 2007 (whitepaper)
Dental work by road workers with jackhammers — Dashboard design gone awry 2007 (blog, Bryan Pierce)
Dashboard Confusion Revisited 2007 (newsletter)
MicroStrategy 8.1 dashboards: state of the art perhaps, but definitely not state of the science 2007 (blog)
Pervasive Hurdles to Effective Dashboard Design 2007 (newsletter)
Why Most Dashboards Fail 2007 (misc. article)
The Crystal Xcelsius Challenge – A showcase for data visualization "Happy Meals" 2006 (blog)
Visual Acuity for effective dashboard design 2006 (blog)
Dashboard Design for Rich and Rapid Monitoring 2006 (newsletter)
Dashboard design flexibility with Corda CenterView 2006 (blog)
Scorecards vs dashboards — a false dichotomy 2006 (blog)
Dashboard design for snail-paced monitoring 2006 (blog)
Designing dashboards for "situation awareness" 2006 (blog)
Rich Data, Poor Data Designing Dashboards to Inform 2006 (whitepaper)
Role-based dashboards 2006 (blog)
Common Pitfalls in Dashboard Design 2006 (whitepaper)
When expensive dashboard software doesn't work, do it with Excel 2006 (blog)
Intelligent Dashboard Design 2005 (misc. articles)
Dashboard Design: Taking a Metaphor Too Far 2005 (misc. articles)
Dashboard Confusion 2004 (misc. articles)
Data presentation, infographics, and quantitative storytelling
Data Communicators – People Who Aren't Interested and Don't Care Are Not Your Audience 2017 (blog)
Tell Me a Story, or Not 2017 (blog)
Journalistic Graphics with Integrity 2015 (blog)
Seven Tenets of Quantitative Data Presentation 2013 (blog)
Stories and Data: An Extraordinary Collaboration 2013 (blog)
What Makes a Chart Boring? 2013 (blog)
Infographics and the Brain: Designing Graphics to Inform 2011 (slides)
Pictures of the News: Malofiej 19 in Review 2011 (blog)
Statistical Narrative: Telling Compelling Stories with Numbers 2009 (newsletter)
At Last, a Scientific Approach to Infographics 2009 (blog)
Infographic Smoke and Mirrors 2009 (blog)
Infographics—It's time to put them to the test 2008 (blog)
Zen and the Art of Presentation 2008 (blog)
Sticky Stories Told with Numbers 2007 (newsletter)
Visual Communication 2006 (whitepaper)
Business Objects and presentation burn-out 2006 (blog)
Effectively Communicating Numbers: Selecting the Best Means and Manner of Display 2005 (whitepaper)
The Information Cannot Speak for Itself 2004 (misc. articles)
Data science
There Is No Science of Data 2017 (blog)
Data Scientists Do Scale 2015 (blog)
Are You a Data Scientist? 2013 (blog)
Tips About Data Science from SAP—Seriously? 2012 (blog)
Data visualization and sensemaking education
Data Analysts Must Be Critical Thinkers 2017 (blog)
Elusive Expertise 2016 (blog)
Critique to Learn 2016 (blog)
There Are No Shortcuts to a Bright Future 2016 (blog)
Scientific Thinking 2015 (blog)
A Course of Study in Analytical Thinking 2015 (newsletter)
Data Sensemaking Requires Time and Attention 2015 (blog)
Quantitative Literacy Across the Curriculum Improving Graphs in College Textbooks 2010 (newsletter, Naomi B. Robbins and Joyce Robbins)
Recommendations for Your Data Visualization Bookshelf 2006 (misc. articles)
Practical Problem Solving 2005 (misc. articles, Jonathan G. Koomey)
Data visualization concepts and taxonomies
Data Is Not Beautiful 2017 (blog)
What Is Data Visualization? 2017 (blog)
Something Going Up Is Not Always Good 2017 (blog)
Confusing Expressions of Relative Proportions 2017 (blog)
Can VR Enhance Data Visualization? 2017 (blog)
There Is No Science of Data 2017 (blog)
A Cauldron of Terminological Confusion 2016 (blog)
Data Visualization Lite 2016 (blog)
Abela's Folly – A Thought Confuser 2015 (blog)
Data Visualization for Human Perception 2014 (misc. article)
Display Platforms for Quantitative Information 2014 (newsletter)
Why Do We Visualize Quantitative Data? 2014 (blog)
What Makes a Chart Boring? 2013 (blog)
Use-Based Types of Quantitative Display 2012 (newsletter)
Boris, speak only of what you know 2012 (blog)
Simplicity vs. Complexity: Design Goals 2011 (blog)
What can the Wall Street Journal teach us about information graphics? 2010 (blog)
Data Visualization: Keeping the Story Straight 2009 (blog)
Can Computers Analyze Data? 2009 (blog)
Do We Really Need More Data? 2009 (blog)
Sometimes We Must Raise Our Voices 2009 (newsletter)
Data Visualization and Analysis—BI's Blind Spots 2008 (blog)
Godin's Silly Rules for Great Graphs 2008 (blog)
Infovis as Seen by the World Out There: 2007 in Review 2007 (slides)
Information Graphics: A Celebration and Recollection 2007 (newsletter, Aaron Marcus)
Periodic table of visualization methods exhibits poor visual design 2007 (blog)
Data Visualization — Past, Present, and Future 2007 (whitepaper)
Visual Pattern Recognition 2006 (whitepaper)
Visual and Interactive Analytics: Fulfilling the Promise of Business Intelligence 2006 (white paper)
Let's open our eyes–the importance of data visualization to BI 2006 (blog)
Effectively Communicating Numbers: Selecting the Best Means and Manner of Display 2005 (whitepaper)
Quantitative vs. Categorical Data: A Difference Worth Knowing 2005 (misc. articles)
Eenie, Meenie, Minie, Moe: Selecting the Right Graph for Your Message 2004 (misc. articles)
Data visualization research
Heatmaps: to Bin or Not to Bin? 2017 (newsletter)
Researchers — Share Your Data! 2017 (blog)
Eye-Tracking Nonsense from Tableau 2017 (blog)
Bad Science and the Fear of "Methodological Terrorism" 2016 (blog)
Is the Avoidance of 3-D Bar Graphs a Knee-Jerk Reaction? 2016 (blog)
Critique to Learn 2016 (blog)
Saving InfoVis from the Researchers 2016 (blog)
HOPs, Skips, and Jumps to Silly Visualizations 2016 (blog)
Potential Information Visualization Research Projects 2016 (misc. articles)
Information Visualization Research as Pseudo-Science 2015 (newsletter)
What Qualifies as Engagement? 2015 (blog)
It's Time to Come Out from the Shadows 2015 (blog)
Two Highlights of IEEE's 2015 VisWeek Conference 2015 (blog)
The Incentives Are All Wrong 2015 (blog)
To Err is Academic 2013 (blog)
Chart Junk: A Magnet for Misguided Research 2013 (blog)
From Giant Hairballs to Clear Patterns in Networks 2013 (blog)
A Pie in the Face for Information Visualization Research 2013 (blog)
Interactive Dynamics for Visual Analysis 2012 (blog)
Benefitting InfoVis with Visual Difficulties? Provocation Without a Cause 2011 (newsletter)
VisWeek 2011 – Award-Worthy Visualization Research 2011 (blog)
VisWeek – What Constitutes the Best Research? 2011 (blog)
The Chartjunk Debate: A Close Examination of Recent Findings 2011 (newsletter)
What Ordinary People Need Most from Information Visualization Today 2008 (newsletter)
Information visualization for the masses – the dialogue continues 2007 (blog)
Responses to InfoVis 2007 — Differing opinions on how to promote our work 2007 (blog)
InfoVis 2007 — An encouraging trend 2007 (blog)
InfoVis 2006—achievements and disappointments 2006 (blog)
Data visualization techniques and best practices
Heatmaps: to Bin or Not to Bin? 2017 (newsletter)
Do tooltips reduce the need for precision in graphs? 2017 (blog, Nick Desbarats)
Confusion about Line Graphs 2017 (blog)
Data Visualization Effectiveness Profile 2017 (newsletter)
Bar Widths and the Spaces in Between 2016 (newsletter)
Expressing Proportions 2016 (newsletter)
Avoiding Quantitative Scales That Make Graphs Hard to Read 2016 (blog, Nick Desbarats)
Visualizing Wide-Variation Data 2016 (newsletter, Nick Desbarats)
When Are 100% Stacked Bar Graphs Useful? 2016 (blog)
Displaying Missing Values and Incomplete Periods in Time Series 2015 (newsletter)
Distribution Displays, Conventional and Potential 2014 (newsletter)
Displaying Change Between Two Points in Time 2014 (newsletter)
Variation and Its Discontents: Funnel Plots for Fair Comparisons 2013 (newsletter)
A Template for Creating Cycle Plots in Excel 2013 (blog, Bryan Pierce)
Black or White: What Color Works Best for the Background of a Screen? 2012 (blog)
Designing Effective Tables and Graphs 2012 (misc. articles)
Infographics and the Brain: Designing Graphics to Inform 2011 (slides)
Quantitative Displays for Combining Time-Series and Part-to-Whole Relationships 2011 (newsletter)
Xcelsius Developers Debate the Merits of "Flashy vs. Few" 2009 (blog)
Introduction to Geographical Data Visualization 2009 (newsletter)
Line Graphs and Irregular Intervals: An Incompatible Partnership 2008 (newsletter)
Solutions to the Problem of Over-Plotting in Graphs 2008 (newsletter)
Inflation Matters 2008 (newsletter, Jonathan G. Koomey)
Dual-Scaled Axes in Graphs: Are They Ever the Best Solution? 2008 (newsletter)
Practical Rules for Using Color in Charts 2008 (newsletter)
Introduction to Cycle Plots 2008 (newsletter, Naomi B. Robbins)
Visualizing Change: An Innovation in Time-Series Analysis 2007 (newsletter)
Shane Schick and pies for many eyes 2007 (blog)
Visual Pattern Recognition 2006 (whitepaper)
Visual Communication 2006 (whitepaper)
Graph Designs for Reviewing Transactions and the Changing Balance 2006 (misc. articles)
Graph Designs for Rapidly Assessing Budget Performance 2006 (misc. articles)
Visualizing time–The efficacy of lines 2006 (blog)
The Surest Path to Visual Discovery 2006 (misc. articles)
BizViz: The Power of Visual Business Intelligence 2006 (misc. articles)
Best Practices for Understanding Quantitative Data 2006 (misc. articles, Jonathan G. Koomey)
Data Visualization: Rules for Encoding Values in Graph 2006 (misc. articles)
Choosing Colors for Data Visualization 2006 (misc. articles, Maureen Stone)
Share your visual data analysis techniques 2006 (blog)
Effectively Communicating Numbers: Selecting the Best Means and Manner of Display 2005 (whitepaper)
Uses and Misuses of Color 2005 (misc. articles)
Grid Lines in Graphs are Rarely Useful 2005 (misc. articles)
Graph Selection Matrix 2004 (misc. articles)
Elegance Through Simplicity 2004 (misc. articles)
Eenie, Meenie, Minie, Moe: Selecting the Right Graph for Your Message 2004 (misc. articles)
Common Mistakes in Data Presentation 2004 (misc. articles)
Data visualization tools
Gartner's Annual Magic Show 2017 (blog)
Examples of False Claims about Self-Service Analytics 2016 (blog)
Exploratory Data Analysis Tool Features: What's Needed and What Should Be Left Out 2016 (blog)
What Do Data Analysts Most Need from Their Tools? 2015 (newsletter)
VisualCue: A Zombie, Reanimated 2014 (blog)
A Preview of Tableau 9: Gauges?! 2013 (blog)
Tableau Veers from the Path 2013 (blog)
SAS, Don't Lose Your Way 2012 (blog)
Hollow Guidance from Forrester for $2,500 or Useful Guidance for Free – The Choice is Yours 2012 (blog)
Criteria for Evaluating Visual EDA Tools 2012 (newsletter)
Dashboard Insight and the Objectivity of Sources 2012 (blog)
Tips About Data Science from SAP—Seriously? 2012 (blog)
Big vs. Small BI: Size Really Doesn't Matter 2011 (blog)
Panopticon Rising 2011 (blog)
SAP BusinessObjects 4.0's "Engaging New User Experience" 2011 (blog, Bryan Pierce)
Old BI and the Challenge of Analytics 2011 (blog)
Oracle—Have you no shame? 2010 (blog)
Tableau Public – A Powerful New Tool for Democratizing Data 2010 (blog)
Big BI is Stuck: Illustrated by SAP BusinessObjects Explorer 2010 (blog)
NodeXL: Network Visualizations in Excel 2010 (blog, Bryan Pierce)
Questions to Ask About Vendors When Evaluating Their Products 2010 (blog)
Fundamental Differences in Analytical Tools: Exploratory, Custom, or Customizable 2009 (newsletter)
Excel 2010: Another Opportunity Missed 2009 (blog)
Cartographic Malpractice: A Review of Bis2 Super Graphics 2009 (newsletter)
Software Support for Bullet Graphs—An Increasingly Popular Means of Display 2009 (blog, Bryan Pierce)
Are visual analysis tools poised to become pervasive? 2008 (blog)
Bad software comes from bad business models 2008 (blog)
Introducing Lazysoft – An engineer's playground, but a data analyst's nightmare 2008 (blog)
Xcelsius Present – Fast Track to Nowhere 2008 (blog)
The Role of Software and the Importance of Thoughtful Defaults 2007 (newsletter)
Tableau Desktop 3.5 — Once again, right on target 2007 (blog)
Graphwise.com — In what respect is this venture wise? 2007 (blog)
Microsoft vs. Oracle business intelligence – Does Dundas make a difference? 2007 (blog)
FYI Visual: The Story of a Product that was Built on a Fault 2007 (newsletter)
Business Objects Insight – A mind grind and waste of time 2007 (blog)
WebCharts3D — Dysfunction at its finest 2007 (blog)
Business Gauges — BI vendors just don't get it 2007 (blog)
Advizor Solutions SalesAdvizor — Blazing a trail that all good visual analysis vendors should follow 2007 (blog)
Bling your Graph–Is Swivel Serious? 2007 (blog)
BI Desktop—Widgets for people who would rather play than work 2007 (blog)
Intelligent Design: Introducing Tableau 3.0 2007 (newsletter)
MicroStrategy 8.1 dashboards: state of the art perhaps, but definitely not state of the science 2007 (blog)
Many Eyes can be better than two 2007 (blog)
Intelligent Enterprise Readers' Choice Awards feature an odd data visualization winner 2007 (blog)
Data360 — Another new venue for sharing data 2007 (blog)
The Crystal Xcelsius Challenge – A showcase for data visualization "Happy Meals" 2006 (blog)
Swivel.com — a great idea executed poorly, unless… 2006 (blog)
Visual Acuity for effective dashboard design 2006 (blog)
Business Objects Labs 2006 (blog)
Dashboard design flexibility with Corda CenterView 2006 (blog)
Dashboard design for snail-paced monitoring 2006 (blog)
Bullet graphs and sparklines for Excel 2006 (blog)
Discoverer — Oracle's underachiever 2006 (blog)
DeltaMaster: German engineering for BI 2006 (blog)
Put to the Test: Tableau 2.0 2006 (misc. articles)
Business Objects' data visualization strategy 2006 (blog)
Software Support for Immersive Business Intelligence 2006 (misc. articles)
Excel's New Charting Engine: Preview of an Opportunity Missed 2006 (misc. articles)
SAS can increase your reach by helping you jump (JMP) 2006 (blog)
Panopticon Explorer .NET — Try it out for free 2006 (blog)
When expensive dashboard software doesn't work, do it with Excel 2006 (blog)
Advizor Solutions Invites You to a Double Wedding 2006 (misc. articles)
Visual Detraction 2005 (misc. articles)
Data Analysis At the Speed of Thought 2005 (misc. articles)
Examples of effective charts
Graphical Journalists Should, First and Foremost, Be Journalists 2015 (blog)
One of Bill Gates' favorite graphs redesigned 2014 (blog, Bryan Pierce)
2012 Perceptual Edge Dashboard Design Competition: A Solution of My Own 2013 (blog)
2012 Perceptual Edge Dashboard Design Competition: We Have a Winner! 2012 (blog)
The Euro Crisis Is Less Complicated Than It Appears 2011 (blog)
Data Blooms in Beauty and Truth 2011 (blog)
The Billion Pound-O-Gram Redesigned 2011 (blog)
Patent Failure: The USPTO's Oversized but Undernourished New Dashboard 2010 (blog, Bryan Pierce)
Graph Design I.Q. Test 2007 (Flash App)
The Ghost Map — Data visualization in the 19th century 2007 (blog)
Data Visualizations that Set the Bar Where It Ought to Be 2006 (newsletter)
Simple Displays of Complex Quantitative Relationships 2006 (misc. articles)
Graph Designs for Reviewing Transactions and the Changing Balance 2006 (misc. articles)
Graph Designs for Rapidly Assessing Budget Performance 2006 (misc. articles)
Creative Visualization: Best in Show 2005 (misc. articles)
Intelligent Dashboard Design 2005 (misc. articles)
Visualizing Multidimensional Data Through Time 2005 (misc. articles)
Examples of ineffective charts and poor chart design
Lollipop Charts: "Who Loves You, Baby?" 2017 (blog)
Is the Avoidance of 3-D Bar Graphs a Knee-Jerk Reaction? 2016 (blog)
HOPs, Skips, and Jumps to Silly Visualizations 2016 (blog)
When Are 100% Stacked Bar Graphs Useful? 2016 (blog)
Graphical Journalists Should, First and Foremost, Be Journalists 2015 (blog)
Abela's Folly – A Thought Confuser 2015 (blog)
Shneiderman Wept 2015 (blog)
Are Mosaic Plots Worthwhile? 2014 (newsletter)
One of Bill Gates' favorite graphs redesigned 2014 (blog, Bryan Pierce)
A Gourmet Tufte Sandwich with Confetti Filling 2013 (blog)
The Billion Pound-O-Gram Redesigned 2011 (blog)
Does GE Think We're Stupid? 2011 (blog)
Big vs. Small BI: Size Really Doesn't Matter 2011 (blog)
Teradata, David McCandless, and yet another detour for analytics 2011 (blog)
Unit Charts Are For Kids 2010 (newsletter)
Patent Failure: The USPTO's Oversized but Undernourished New Dashboard 2010 (blog, Bryan Pierce)
Our Irresistible Fascination with All Things Circular 2010 (newsletter)
Circle-Lust Continues 2010 (blog, Bryan Pierce)
Oracle—Have you no shame? 2010 (blog)
The Vicious Cycle of Data Impoverishment 2010 (blog)
Federal CIO Dashboard: We Can and Should Do Better Than This 2009 (blog)
The Global BusinessObjects Network Has Pie On Its Face 2009 (blog, Bryan Pierce)
Infographic Smoke and Mirrors 2009 (blog)
Data Visualization and Dog Food 2009 (blog)
Infographics—It's time to put them to the test 2008 (blog)
What's Up with Tag Clouds? 2008 (newsletter, Marti A. Hearst)
Beauty at the Cost of Insight 2008 (blog, Bryan Pierce)
Graphwise.com — In what respect is this venture wise? 2007 (blog)
Save the Pies for Dessert 2007 (newsletter)
Taunts from the playground 2007 (blog)
Graph Design I.Q. Test 2007 (Flash App)
Business Objects' Bullet Graphs: A Good Idea, Implemented Poorly 2007 (blog, Bryan Pierce)
Oracle/PeopleSoft Enterprise Service Dashboard — A disservice to people who desperately need better 2007 (blog)
Microsoft vs. Oracle business intelligence – Does Dundas make a difference? 2007 (blog)
Dental work by road workers with jackhammers — Dashboard design gone awry 2007 (blog, Bryan Pierce)
WebCharts3D — Dysfunction at its finest 2007 (blog)
Sparkline Tickers—What would Tufte think? 2007 (blog)
Bling your Graph–Is Swivel Serious? 2007 (blog)
BI Desktop—Widgets for people who would rather play than work 2007 (blog)
MicroStrategy 8.1 dashboards: state of the art perhaps, but definitely not state of the science 2007 (blog)
The Crystal Xcelsius Challenge – A showcase for data visualization "Happy Meals" 2006 (blog)
Simple Displays of Complex Quantitative Relationships 2006 (misc. articles)
Graph Designs for Reviewing Transactions and the Changing Balance 2006 (misc. articles)
Graph Designs for Rapidly Assessing Budget Performance 2006 (misc. articles)
Graph Hall of Shame – Nominee #2 2006 (blog)
Graph Hall of Shame 2006 (blog)
Creative Visualization: Best in Show 2005 (misc. articles)
Visual Detraction 2005 (misc. articles)
Visualizing Multidimensional Data Through Time 2005 (misc. articles)
Keep Radar Graphs Below the Radar - Far Below 2005 (misc. articles)
Bad Graphs: The Stealth Virus 2005 (misc. articles)
New or unfamiliar forms of data visualization
Journey to Zvinca: The Making of a New Chart 2017 (newsletter)
The DataVis Jitterbug: Let's Improve an Old Dance 2017 (newsletter)
Distribution Displays, Conventional and Potential 2014 (newsletter)
Variation and Its Discontents: Funnel Plots for Fair Comparisons 2013 (newsletter)
Wrapping Graphs to Extend Their Limits 2013 (newsletter)
What Can't Be Built with Bricks? 2013 (blog)
Building Insight with Bricks: A New, More Perceptible Method for Encoding Quantitative Values in Geospatial Displays 2013 (newsletter)
Introducing Bandlines: Sparklines Enriched with Information about Magnitude and Distribution 2013 (newsletter)
Bandlines Are Already Commercially Available 2013 (blog)
NodeXL: Network Visualizations in Excel 2010 (blog, Bryan Pierce)
Time on the Horizon 2008 (newsletter)
Introduction to Cycle Plots 2008 (newsletter, Naomi B. Robbins)
Dashboard Confusion Revisited 2007 (newsletter)
Three Blind Men and an Elephant: The Power of Faceted Analytical Displays 2007 (whitepaper)
Multivariate Analysis Using Parallel Coordinates 2006 (misc. articles)
An Introduction to Visual Multivariate Analysis 2006 (misc. articles)
TableLens: A Clear Window for Viewing Multivariate Data 2006 (misc. articles, Ramana Rao)
Customer Flashcards - Customer Analysis Using Pictures and Patterns 2006 (misc. articles, Chris and Zach Gemignani)
Discovering Business Intelligence Using Treemap Visualizations 2006 (misc. articles, Ben Shneiderman)
Dot Plots: A Useful Alternative to Bar Charts 2006 (misc. articles, Naomi B. Robbins)
Boxes of Insight 2005 (misc. articles)
Perception and cognition
The Least Amount of Information 2017 (blog)
The Visual Perception of Variation in Data Displays 2016 (newsletter)
Data Visualization for Human Perception 2014 (misc. article)
Data Visualization and the Blind 2013 (blog)
Infographics and the Brain: Designing Graphics to Inform 2011 (slides)
Practical Rules for Using Color in Charts 2008 (newsletter)
Improve Your Vision and Expand Your Mind with Visual Analytics 2007 (whitepaper)
Redundantly encoding time-series data in sight and sound does not speed up perception 2007 (blog)
Visual Pattern Recognition 2006 (whitepaper)
Visual Communication 2006 (whitepaper)
Choosing Colors for Data Visualization 2006 (misc. articles, Maureen Stone)
Uses and Misuses of Color 2005 (misc. articles)
Tapping the Power of Visual Perception 2004 (misc. articles)
Principles of design
Design with a Purpose in Mind 2017 (blog)
Design vs. Art 2014 (blog)
Design for the Real World 2014 (blog)
Dieter Rams' Ten Principles for Good Design 2011 (blog)
Designing with the Mind in Mind: A Brief Book Review 2011 (blog)
Simplicity vs. Complexity: Design Goals 2011 (blog)
Information Visualization, Design, and the Arts: Collision or Collaboration? 2010 (newsletter)
Designing the User Interface 2009 (blog)
Visual Thinking for Design 2008 (blog)
Things That Make Us Smart 2007 (blog)
Self-Service Analytics
The Myth of Self-Service Analytics 2016 (blog)
TIBCO Spotfire Promotes an Insidious Myth 2015 (blog)
Sparklines
Best Practices for Scaling Sparklines in Dashboards 2012 (newsletter)
Sparkline Tickers—What would Tufte think? 2007 (blog)
Bullet graphs and sparklines for Excel 2006 (blog)
Specific chart types
Heatmaps: to Bin or Not to Bin? 2017 (newsletter)
Journey to Zvinca: The Making of a New Chart 2017 (newsletter)
The DataVis Jitterbug: Let's Improve an Old Dance 2017 (newsletter)
Lollipop Charts: "Who Loves You, Baby?" 2017 (blog)
Confusion about Line Graphs 2017 (blog)
When Are 100% Stacked Bar Graphs Useful? 2016 (blog)
Are Mosaic Plots Worthwhile? 2014 (newsletter)
Variation and Its Discontents: Funnel Plots for Fair Comparisons 2013 (newsletter)
A Template for Creating Cycle Plots in Excel 2013 (blog, Bryan Pierce)
Wrapping Graphs to Extend Their Limits 2013 (newsletter)
Introducing Bandlines: Sparklines Enriched with Information about Magnitude and Distribution 2013 (newsletter)
From Giant Hairballs to Clear Patterns in Networks 2013 (blog)
What Can't Be Built with Bricks? 2013 (blog)
Building Insight with Bricks: A New, More Perceptible Method for Encoding Quantitative Values in Geospatial Displays 2013 (newsletter)
Bandlines Are Already Commercially Available 2013 (blog)
Best Practices for Scaling Sparklines in Dashboards 2012 (newsletter)
Unit Charts Are For Kids 2010 (newsletter)
NodeXL: Network Visualizations in Excel 2010 (blog, Bryan Pierce)
Horizon Graphs Revisited 2009 (blog)
Software Support for Bullet Graphs—An Increasingly Popular Means of Display 2009 (blog, Bryan Pierce)
Time on the Horizon 2008 (newsletter)
What's Up with Tag Clouds? 2008 (newsletter, Marti A. Hearst)
Bullet Graphs for Not-to-Exceed Targets 2008 (blog)
Introduction to Cycle Plots 2008 (newsletter, Naomi B. Robbins)
Save the Pies for Dessert 2007 (newsletter)
Business Objects' Bullet Graphs: A Good Idea, Implemented Poorly 2007 (blog, Bryan Pierce)
Enhanced Gantt Charts with Excel 2007 (blog)
Sparkline Tickers—What would Tufte think? 2007 (blog)
Shane Schick and pies for many eyes 2007 (blog)
Multivariate Analysis Using Heatmaps 2006 (misc. articles)
Multivariate Analysis Using Parallel Coordinates 2006 (misc. articles)
TableLens: A Clear Window for Viewing Multivariate Data 2006 (misc. articles, Ramana Rao)
Visualizing time–The efficacy of lines 2006 (blog)
Discovering Business Intelligence Using Treemap Visualizations 2006 (misc. articles, Ben Shneiderman)
Dot Plots: A Useful Alternative to Bar Charts 2006 (misc. articles, Naomi B. Robbins)
Bullet Graph Design Specification 2006 (misc. articles)
Boxes of Insight 2005 (misc. articles)
Keep Radar Graphs Below the Radar - Far Below 2005 (misc. articles)
Visual exploratory data analysis
Exploratory Data Analysis Tool Features: What's Needed and What Should Be Left Out 2016 (blog)
Criteria for Evaluating Visual EDA Tools 2012 (newsletter)
Exploratory Vistas Ways to Become Acquainted with a Data Set for the First Time 2011 (newsletter)
Coordinated Highlighting in Context: Bringing Multidimensional Connections to Light 2010 (newsletter)
Are visual analysis tools poised to become pervasive? 2008 (blog)
Dashboard Confusion Revisited 2007 (newsletter)
Three Blind Men and an Elephant: The Power of Faceted Analytical Displays 2007 (whitepaper)
Improve Your Vision and Expand Your Mind with Visual Analytics 2007 (whitepaper)
Multivariate Analysis Using Heatmaps 2006 (misc. articles)
Multivariate Analysis Using Parallel Coordinates 2006 (misc. articles)
An Introduction to Visual Multivariate Analysis 2006 (misc. articles)
The Surest Path to Visual Discovery 2006 (misc. articles)
BizViz: The Power of Visual Business Intelligence 2006 (misc. articles)
Visual and Interactive Analytics: Fulfilling the Promise of Business Intelligence 2006 (white paper)
Share your visual data analysis techniques 2006 (blog)
Miscellaneous
There's Nothing Mere About Semantics 2017 (blog)
Confessions of a Bipolar Technologist 2017 (blog)
Is there a Role for Natural Language Processing in Data Visualization? 2016 (blog)
When More is Less: Quantitative Numbing 2016 (blog)
"Should We?": The Question That Is Rarely Asked 2016 (blog)
Direct the Course of Evolution, or Perish 2016 (blog)
The Myth of Expertise Transference 2016 (blog)
Deep and Wide 2016 (blog)
To Err Is Human 2016 (blog)
We Must Vet Our Data Visualization Advisers with Care 2016 (blog)
The Slippery Slope of Unbridled Semantics 2016 (blog)
What Is the Best Response to Bad Practices? 2015 (blog)
It Takes More than a Good Name (or including 'Good' in your name) 2015 (blog)
2014: A Year to Surpass 2015 (blog)
Linear Fractions 2013 (blog)
Beware the Straw Man 2013 (blog)
My Experience with Taylor & Francis (or, "Why Are Publishers So Incredibly Dumb?") 2013 (blog)
O'Reilly Media Has Lost Its Soul 2013 (blog)
Control vs. the Illusion of Control: Which Works for You? 2012 (blog)
The Wisdom of Fly Fishing 2012 (blog)
Sometimes Less Really Is Less 2012 (blog)
Information Technology and the Loss of Common Sense 2012 (blog)
Confusion in the Age of Data 2012 (blog)
Bret Victor and Guiding Principles 2012 (blog)
Boris, speak only of what you know 2012 (blog)
Data Visualization and the Placebo Effect 2012 (blog)
Report from VisWeek 2011: Is information visualization a science? 2011 (blog)
Visualizing Healthcare 2010 (blog)
Rosling—Where's the data? 2010 (blog)
BP Oil Collection – Is the Effort Really Improving? 2010 (blog)
The Unprecedented is Overrated 2010 (blog)
Feature Lists Make Us Comfortable, but Sometimes Make Us Dumb 2009 (blog)
Malcolm Gladwell, modern problems, and the analytics age 2009 (blog)
Business Is Personal – Let's Stop Pretending It Isn't 2009 (blog)
I do not like ill-reasoned spam; I do not like it, Sam-I-am. 2009 (blog)
Dear IEEE and Other Academic Publishers — Perhaps It's Time for a Change 2008 (blog)
The Brain's Spam Filter 2008 (blog)
VizThink 2008 — Not every picture is worth a thousand words 2007 (blog)
Be as provocative as you wish, but back your opinions with substance 2007 (blog)
Pat Hanrahan — Exceedingly talented and a nice guy to boot 2007 (blog)
Hard facts in hard times 2006 (blog)
Time for a little reflection 2006 (blog)
Bring your multidimensional self to the office (or "Multidimensional data can only be understood by multidimensional people") 2006 (blog)
When did you last look up and notice the moon? (or "When will Business Objects raise its head and look around?") 2006 (blog)
Graphic Grist for the Mill 2005 (misc. articles)
Rare Business Assets: Tables and Graphs that Communicate 2004 (misc. articles)