Refresher on Visualizations - Issue 295

Charts, dashboards, and storytelling basics - what actually matters when showing data.

Welcome to my Data Analytics Journal, where I write about data science and analytics.

To my readers in San Francisco and New York - thank you for coming to Hex Magic Hours last Tuesday and yesterday. It was a blast!

For anyone who couldn’t make it, I’ll share a recap (and my talk) in a few weeks.

Today, I’m continuing my December Refresh Series. So far, I’ve covered:

1. Refresher on Retention

2. Refresher on Statistics

3. Refresher on SQL for Data Analysis

4. Refresher on Experimentation

This week’s edition is a refresher on visualization: how to build effective charts, design dashboards that people actually use, choose layouts that guide attention, and present data in a way that tells a clear story.

This is something I struggle with a lot, so I started putting this list together for myself many years ago. Some of these sources and tutorials are a little old, but I think they’re timeless. I still refer to them often, and I think it’s time to share them with you—especially since I didn’t write much about charting and dashboarding this year.

I hope these resources elevate your data communication and storytelling. Frankly, there’s nothing more important than that.