Make It Visible
Visual Analytics and Data Storytelling
Make It Visible
Visual Analytics and Data Storytelling
A book about reading and making charts. Its twelve cases cover child mortality, air pollution, refugees and asylum, school districts, college majors, jails and prisons, trust, polls, nonprofits, and life expectancy. For each question it shows how a chart can help a reader find the answer, and where a chart can mislead.
Every chart in the book is built in R from data you can download. In this edition, the code for each figure is under a fold on the page. The print edition includes the figures and leaves the code out.
What the Book Covers
Seeing
What a chart can show that a table cannot (Chapter 1). How we see a chart, and where the visual system can be misled (Chapter 2). Seven questions to ask of a chart someone else made (Chapter 3).
Choosing
One chapter for each question a chart can answer. Comparison and composition (Chapter 4), distribution (Chapter 5), relationship (Chapter 6), change over time (Chapter 7), and place (Chapter 8). Each chapter draws the same data several ways and explains which way fits which question.
Craft
Color, type, and annotation, with one default chart rebuilt into a finished one (Chapter 9). Uncertainty, and why a chart that leaves it out can mislead (Chapter 10).
Telling
Interaction and dashboards, and which interactions to add (Chapter 11). From a first exploratory chart to a three-panel story, with a method for using a language model without letting it write the finding (Chapter 12).
How the Book Works
Each chapter opens with a case. The data behind the case come from a public source named in every figure caption. The chapter builds its charts step by step. An Ethics Moment box discusses a design choice that involves a judgment. An AI Reality Check box describes what a model tends to do with the same problem. A Try It Online box links to an app that runs in the browser. Exercises come in three tiers, from concept questions to open questions of judgment.
Editions
| Edition | Where | What it includes |
|---|---|---|
| Online | This site | Every chapter, the code behind every figure, interactive versions of several charts, and links to the apps and data |
| Amazon, hardcover and paperback, 7 by 10 inches in color | Every chapter and figure, with the code left out | |
| Kindle | Amazon | The print text, reflowable |
The online edition stays free. Buying the print edition supports the next book in the series.
The Series
Make It Visible is part of the Margin of Error series from Margin of Error Media. The other volumes are Margin of Error on statistics (stats.marginoferrormedia.com), Before the Numbers on quantitative research design, Beyond the Numbers on qualitative research, and Run the Numbers, a free online companion that teaches the R used across the series (r.marginoferrormedia.com).