Chapter 1

Telling Stories with Data

Think of all the popular data visualization works out there—the ones that you always hear in lectures or read about in blogs, and the ones that popped into your head as you were reading this sentence. What do they all have in common? They all tell an interesting story. Maybe the story was to convince you of something. Maybe it was to compel you to action, enlighten you with new information, or force you to question your own preconceived notions of reality. Whatever it is, the best data visualization, big or small, for art or a slide presentation, helps you see what the data have to say.

Get Visualize This: The FlowingData Guide to Design, Visualization, and Statistics now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.