In this monthly series, I share a combination of cool data visualizations, useful tools and resources, and other visualization miscellany. The field of data visualization is full of experts who publish insights in books and on blogs, and I’ll be using this series to introduce you to a few of them. You can find previous posts by looking at the Exploring Data Visualization tag.

Welcome back to this blog series! Here are some of the things I read in May:

from Alvin Chang at Vox, “How Republicans are undermining the 2020 census, explained with a cartoon”

1) Alvin Chang, Senior Graphics Reporter at Vox, “covers policy by making explainers with charts and cartoons.” This month he explained the precarious state of the upcoming 2020 U.S. Census.

from Lisa Charlotte Rost at Uncharted, “Why not to use two axes, and what to use instead”

2) Lisa Charlotte Rost, a designer for Datawrapper, explains why dual-axis charts are almost always terrible, and what you can use instead.

“The Wisdom and/or Madness of Crowds,” a game created by Nicky Case

3) Play this cute game! Nicky Case combines the logic of network graphs with the science of crowds in an “explorable” that shows why some crowds generate wisdom, while others create madness.

I hope you enjoyed this data visualization news! If you have any data visualization questions, please feel free to email me and set up an appointment at the Scholarly Commons.