The world of journalism is constantly moving and shifting to keep up with whatever humanity is most interested in at the time.

But there are a few aspects of journalism that have always and will always remain relevant. Text, photos or videos, and data visualizations.

Data visualizations have been used by humans for centuries. I mean think about it, data visualizations can be something as simple as a map… and the first one of those was created around like 500 B.C.

Much like these other aspects of journalism, data visualizations have changed and evolved past simple maps and even the charts that came after. Today, we have interactive data visuals, ones that update in real time… some that people even use as art.

And this growth is great. Any tool that allows us to better explain a complex topic or story to our audience is a welcome change. Especially as our attention spans continue to shrink… it’s becoming hard to ask someone to sit down and read a whole article. Being able to put this important information to a visual that can keep someone much more engaged is the difference between getting that story to a large audience, or none at all.

Taking the good with the bad.

While these new developments in data visualization are nice… they come with some baggage.

For one, with such broad access, anyone can make a data visualization. But not everyone can do it responsibly. For example, here are some poor practices in making data visualizations:

• Cherry Picking data: Choosing statistics selectively and ignoring data that shows a contradicting trend.
• Inaccurate representation: Using formats like pie charts can be misleading if done incorrectly. Or, the scale of other charts can be distorted, making an insignificant gap possibly feel massive.
• Inaccessible charts: Using poor contrast or small, non resizable graphics.

Especially as journalists, we can be prone to these mistakes. We’re always being encouraged to make our stories as impactful as possible, but maybe that motivation can be to the disservice of our audience. Journalists can be guilty of distorting statistics, just to try and make them move an audience more.

Then… sometimes maybe our egos get in the way. We want to make the biggest, most compelling, most informative data visualization. But we lose all of that when the audience can’t even understand it.

Take this graphic for example. There’s so many different statistics, so many different data sets and so many different ways to visualize them that the important information gets lost.

So, what makes a good data visualization?

There’s a few features of data visualizations that are important to make them appealing, clear and impactful.

• Be clear: Keep a traditional y-axis, ensure percentages total 100, make sure time intervals are consistent and clearly label legends and axes.
• Design intentionally: Use a format that makes sense for the data you’re showing, choose intentional and intuitive colors.
• Be simple: In an article, use only one graphic per statistic, keep it 2-D, simple labels and annotations

Good Data Visualizations

Here’s a few examples of data visualizations I really enjoy:

News and Social Media

I. Love. Pew. Research. I often go there when I’m in need of any sort of statistic. I love how simple and easy to understand their graphics are. This one is a stacked bar chart that shows how many Americans consume news on social media over the years. The only thing missing here, I think, is a little more diversity in the color choices. That would make it more accessible for anyone color blind or hard of seeing. But nonetheless, it’s a nice visual… and they provide the raw data at one click if you’re on the website.

World Population Flags

This is a super cool graphic showing the population of each country, represented by a circle. They even laid it out to look like the map of the world. I think this is such an an interesting way to show the world’s population in an impactful way. We’re able to compare this map to the actual world map, and see population compared to land mass. And, if you actually open the link, it has a whole scrollytelling component, zooms around the world, and provides more context to the map.

SpaceX’s IPO

This is a visualization of SpaceX’s IPO as it became a publicly traded company, in comparison to other companies. You have to click the link to really get a feel for it. The animation at the beginning pulls you straight into the article. I appreciate the simplicity of the first visual. It points out just a couple big companies, uses a simple bar graph format, and is very transparent in scale. This also has a scrollytelling aspect to it, and even more data visualizations as you scroll.

Data visualization is a huge part of journalism. It’s a simple, informative and appealing way to tell your story. So use them, but use them well.