Beautiful Data

Conclusion

Political data is increasingly accessible and is increasingly being plotted and shared in the media and on the Web. At the research level, articles in political science journals are starting to make use of graphical techniques for discovery and presentation of results. And online tools ranging from NationMaster.com to the Name Voyager (http://www.babynamewizard.com/voyager) are becoming increasingly accessible, with data dumps such as Hans Rosling's TED talk (http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html) becoming cult favorites. We expect statistical visualization to become more important and more widespread in political analysis.