3MW (My two favorite dataviz strategies)

Guten Tag!

Many greetings from Ulm, Germany. I've decided to rename this newsletter into 3 Minutes Wednesdays (because I publish on Wednesdays and I keep it short). Today, I share my two most favorite dataviz strategies (and some resources as always).

Strategy 1: Start with grey

This strategy gives you the biggest bang for your buck. It's super simple. Instead of using colors for each and every category in your data set, try using only one or two colors. This is a powerful tool to

• avoid a colorful mess

• emphasize your highlights/story.

Need an example? Here, I've visualized a data set from Our World in Data. You can see the amount of time we spend alone or with other people.

Notice what happens at the age of 40. We spend less time with our kids and more time alone. A nuanced use of colors can highlight that.

The message is immediately clear now, right? That's what a strategic use of colors will give you. You could improve this plot by removing the legend and labeling directly. If you're interested in that or other color-related tricks, check out my blog post.

Strategy 2: Avoid too many chart types

Unfortunately, this strategy is obvious but easy to forget. Probably the most common reason why it's easy to forget is that we know our data and we want to show it all.

That's why we might start out innocently with a bar chart. But then we want to show more. Maybe we add a reference line. Also, showing exact values would be great. You know, to be precise. So, we include points and text labels. Suddenly, we've got a mess.

Here's an example of that from the Storytelling with Data blog.

Instead of using texts, lines, points and bars, we could use only points and bars. Sure, I may have trouble reading the exact values now. But overall, the viz became cleaner and easier to read.

(You can find a tutorial for this viz, on my blog)

Recommended Resources

1. Coolors generator: I always have trouble figuring out which colors "work well together". Thankfully, this color generator does most of the heavy lifting for me. Honestly, I have no clue how this generator chooses color palettes. But I like the result it produces. Maybe you will too.

2. The Truthful Art by Alberto Cairo: This book is not the typical dataviz book. I've only finished 25% of this book but I'm already a big fan. That's because it talks not only about design choices but also about morale, intention and overall truthfulness of dataviz. A good read for anyone who is concerned about creating a misleading dataviz by accident or falling prey to one.

That's a wrap! As always, I'm happy to hear your feedback about this week's issue. Feel free to write me on Twitter or reply to this mail.

Enjoy the rest of your day!Albert