Index

A

Abel, Guy, 314

Accurat, 57–58, 367–371

aesthetics, 56–57, 221

Agrawala, Maneesh, 220

Albrecht, Kim, 364

All Marketers Are Liars (Godin), 14

Andrews, Wilson, 344

animated transitions, 339

annotation layer, 334

ANOVA test, 171n

apophenia, 81

Armstrong, Zan, 219

articulacy skills, 97

Atlas of Knowledge (Börner), 148

author’s website, 152

B

Bacon, Sir Francis, 87

Bad Science (Goldacre), 17n, 23

Baltimore Sun, 272, 273

bar charts, 29, 139, 140, 225, 226, 313

baselines, 135–137

beautiful graphics, 53–59

Beauty (Scruton), 65

Beckman, Rick, 342

Beginning of Infinity, The (Deutsch), 97

Behrens, John T., 197, 231, 299

Believing Brain, The (Shermer), 97

Berliner Morgenpost, 287, 289, 290, 357–358

Bertin, Jacques, 125, 148

Bertini, Enrico, 41, 45

Beschizza, Rob, 76

Bestiario, 277, 278

Blow, Charles, 344

Boix, Esteve, 60, 62, 63

Bondarenko, Anatoly, 76

Börner, Katy, 125, 148

Bostock, Mike, 294, 295, 344, 347

Box, George E.P., 116

box plots, 192–193

Boyer, Brian, 53, 338

Bradley, Raymond S., 42

breadth of information, 92, 94–95

Brewer, Cynthia, 296

Broderick, Tim, 256

Bui, Quoctrung, 133, 338, 339

bullet graphs, 334, 336

Burdarelli, Rodrigo, 248

Bycoffe, Aaron, 354

C

Cain, Patrick, 254–255

Caldwell, Sally, 166

Camões, Jorge, 220–228, 231

candid communication, 13

Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Piketty), 130

Cartesian coordinate system, 28

cartograms, 292

Cartographer’s Toolkit (Peterson), 297

Castano, Emanuele, 111

causation and correlation, 259–261

Central Limit Theorem, 307n

change rate, 214–217

charts

bar, 29, 139, 140, 225, 226, 313

definition of, 28

dot, 29, 313

fan, 314, 315

frequency, 178–183

horizon, 220–223

line, 139, 140, 141, 229

lollipop, 28, 29

pie, 50–51

radar, 141–143, 145, 146

relationship, 261

scatter, 29, 228, 230, 242–246

seasonal subseries, 209–210

slope, 29, 51, 143

stacked area, 133

time series, 29, 133, 201–230, 313

See also plots

choropleth maps, 129, 280–292

classifying data in, 282–287

examples of using, 287–292

Christiansen, Jen, 361

clarity, 45–46, 78

Clark, Jeff, 364, 366

classes, choropleth map, 282

Cleveland, William S., 27, 125, 128, 129, 148, 224, 275, 336

Clinton, Hillary, 354

Coase, Ronald H., 200

coefficient of determination, 259

Coghlan, Avril, 231

cognitive dissonance, 83, 84n

Cohen, Geoffrey, 84

ColorBrewer website, 296

communication

candid vs. strategic, 13–16

correlation for, 248–259

conclusions, scientific, 100

confidence intervals

building, 308–312

margin of error and, 300

confidence level, 308

confirmation bias, 83

confirmation bug, 80, 84–85

conformal projections, 267

confounding variables, 110

conjectures, 100, 101–104

requirements for rational, 101–102

testability of, 103–104

connected scatter plot, 228, 230

continuous variables, 107

control group, 111, 321

controlled experiments, 110–111

correlation coefficient, 237, 259

correlations

associations and, 236–247

causation and, 259–261

for communication, 248–259

examples of spurious, 233–236

key points about, 237–238

regression and, 257–259

Correll, Michael, 313

Cotgreave, Andy, 28

Cox, Amanda, 347

creationism, 16

critical value, 309, 310

cross-sectional studies, 107, 109

Cuadra, Alberto, 360

Cult of Statistical Significance, The (Ziliak and McCloskey), 325

Culturegraphy project, 364, 365

cumulative probability, 188

D

Daily Herald, 255–256, 257

Damasio, Antonio, 55n

data, 100

classification of, 282–287

manipulation of, 194–195

mapping of, 263–297

transformation of, 261

visually encoding, 123–125

Data at Work (Camões), 220, 231

data decoration, 56

data maps, 29, 129–130, 271–296

data visualizations, 31

Dataclysm: Who We Are (Rudder), 167

Davies, Jason, 294, 296

Dear Data project, 372

Dearing, Brian E., 166

Death and Life of American Journalism, The (McChesney and Nichols), 23

DeBold, Tynan, 350

deceiving vs. lying, 15

deciles, 191

DeGroot, Len, 195

dependent variable, 105, 257n

depth of information, 92, 94–95

Deresiewicz, William, 329

“Design and Redesign in Data Visualization” (Viégas and Wattenberg), 351

Design for Information (Meirelles), 149

Design for the Real World (Papanek), 65

Designing Better Maps (Brewer), 296

Designing Data Visualizations (Steele and Iliinsky), 149

Deutsch, David, 97, 104

developable surfaces, 265

diagrams

Sankey, 10, 28, 131

use of term, 28

See also charts

Discovering Statistics Using R (Field, Miles, and Field), 325

Discovery Institute, 16

discrete variables, 107

distributions

level of, 153, 194

normal, 188–190

sample means, 306

shape of, 158, 194

skewed, 155, 159

spread of, 194

unimodal, 154

divergent color schemes, 285, 286

Donahue, Rafe M. J., 211, 231

dot chart/plot, 29, 313

dot maps, 271–272, 273

Dowd, Maureen, 1

dubious models, 71–76

Duenes, Steve, 344

E

Eames, Charles, 59

Ebbinghaus illusion, 275

ecological fallacy, 259n

Economist, The, 131

effect size, 323

Eigenfactor project, 10

Einstein, Albert, 82n

El Financiero, 251, 252

El País, 299–302

Elements of Graphing Data, The (Cleveland), 125, 148

Elements of Journalism, The (Kovach and Rosenstiel), 21

Emery, Ann K., 125, 127

Emotional Design (Norman), 56

enlightening graphics, 60, 62–65

Época magazine, 143, 144, 249

equal-area projections, 268

Erickson, B. H., 155, 197

Ericson, Matt, 344

error

margin of, 300

sampling, 91

standard, 305–308

error bars, 313

Estadão Dados, 248, 250, 251

Evolution (Prothero), 16, 116

exceptions and the norm, 152, 194

experimental group, 111, 321

experiments, 110–111

explanatory variables, 105, 257

exploratory data analysis, 151–166

Exploratory Data Analysis (Hartwig and Dearing), 166

extraneous variables, 109–110

F

Fairchild, Hannah, 252

fan charts, 314, 315

Fessenden, Ford, 344

Few, Stephen, 125, 148, 246–247, 262, 334, 336

Feynman, Richard, 86, 167

Field, Andy, 325

Field, Zoë, 325

Fisher-Jenks algorithm, 286

FiveThirtyEight.com, 353–355

Flagg, Anna, 342

flow charts, 28

flow maps, 277–279

Ford, Doug (and Rob), 254

frequency

over time, 195–197

of values, 158

frequency charts, 178–183

Friedman, Dov, 350

Fuller, Jack, 20

Functional Art, The (Cairo), 40, 50, 70n

functional graphics, 50–51

Fundamental Statistical Concepts in Presenting Data (Donahue), 231

Fung, Kaiser, 199

funnel plots, 185, 336–337

G

Galton, Sir Francis, 102n, 185

Galton probability box, 185–188

“garbage in, garbage out” dictum, 317

Gates, Gary, 337

Gebeloff, Robert, 344

Gelman, Andrew, 197, 317

Gigerenzer, Gerd, 80

Gleicher, Michael, 313

Gleiser, Marcelo, 6, 23

Global News, 254, 257

Godfrey-Smith, Peter, 97

Godin, Seth, 14, 15

Goldacre, Ben, 17n, 23

Golder, Scott, 344

Goode’s Homolosine projection, 267, 268

Grabell, Michael, 341

gradient plots, 313, 314

Grand Design, The (Hawking and Mlodinow), 70n

grand mean, 156

graphicacy skills, 97

graphs

bullet, 334, 336

use of term, 28

See also charts

Gregg, Xan, 336–338

Groeger, Lena, 341

Guardian, The, 37–38

Guimarães, Camila, 248

Gurovitz, Helio, 146

gut feelings, 80

H

Harris, Robert L., 40

Hartwig, Frederick, 166

Hawking, Stephen, 70n, 82n

heat maps, 224, 225, 244–246, 253–254, 350

Heer, Jeffrey, 220

Heisenberg, Werner, 317

Hello World: Where Design Meets Life (Rawsthorn), 65

hierarchy of elementary perceptual tasks, 125, 128, 129

histograms, 158–160, 163, 166, 303

hockey stick chart, 42, 43–45

Holiday, Ryan, 18

Holmes, Nigel, 78n

honesty, 48

horizon charts, 220–223

How Maps Work (MacEachren), 296

How to Lie With Maps (Monmonier), 263n, 297

Huang, Jon, 253

Hughes, Malcolm K., 42

Huxley, Thomas Henry, 86

hypotheses

definition of, 100, 105

testing, 100, 107

I

Ideb index, 152–153

Iliinsky, Noah, 125, 149

independent variable, 105, 257n

index origin, 212

indexes

calculating, 210–213

zero-based, 212–213

infographics

definition of, 14, 31

examples of, 30, 32–33

Information Graphics (Harris), 40

Information Graphics (Rendgen), 40

Inselberg, Al, 246

insightful graphics, 59–60, 61

interactive multimedia storytelling, 342–343

intercept, 258

Interquartile Range (IQR), 193

interval scales, 106

intervals of constant size, 283

Introduction to the Practice of Statistics (Moore and McCabe), 262

intuition, 80

isarithmic maps, 293–294

island of knowledge metaphor, 6–7, 10

Island of Knowledge, The (Gleiser), 23

J

Jacobs, Brian, 343

Jarvis, Jeff, 21

Jerven, Morten, 317

Jordan, Michael, 155

Journal of Nutrition, 235

journalism, 14, 17–18

fulfilling the purpose of, 21

study on graduates majoring in, 89–93

visual design and, 20–23

K

Kamal, Raj, 83

Karabell, Zachary, 318, 325

Katz, Josh, 344

Khan, Razib, 99

Kidd, David Comer, 111

Klein, Scott, 53, 316, 333

knowledge, island of, 6–7, 10

knowledge-building insight, 59, 60

Kong, Nicholas, 220

Kosara, Robert, 252

Kosslyn, Stephen, 125

Krause, Heather, 318–320

Krugman, Paul, 217–218

Krusz, Alex, 313, 314

Kuonen, Diego, 193

kurtosis, 159n

L

Lambert cylindrical projection, 267, 268

Lambrechts, Maarten, 358–360

Lamstein, Ari, 281

large-scale maps, 264

Larsen, Reif, 263

Latour, Bruno, 49n

Laws of Simplicity, The (Maeda), 97

Leading Indicators, The (Karabell), 318, 325

legends for maps, 276–277

Lemmon, Vance, 329–331

level of distribution, 153, 194

Lewis, Charles, 17, 22, 23

Lightner, Renee, 348

line charts, 139, 140, 141, 229

line maps, 277–279

linear legends, 276

linear relationships, 238

literacy skills, 97

Little Book of R for Time Series, A (Coghlan), 231

Llaneras, Kiko, 180, 181

log transformation, 216

logarithmic scale, 215

lollipop chart, 28, 29

longitudinal studies, 108, 109

López, Hugo, 251

Los Angeles Times, 195, 196

Lotan, Gilad, 10–12

LOWESS trend line, 241

Lupi, Giorgia, 367, 369, 372

Lupton, Ellen, 268

lurking variables, 110

lying vs. deceiving, 15

M

MacEachren, Alan M., 296

Maeda, John, 97

Maia, Maurício, 20–21, 22

Mann, Michael E., 42, 44

Mapping It Out (Monmonier), 97

maps, 29, 263–297

choropleth, 129, 280–292

data, 29, 129–130, 271–296

dot, 271–272, 273

flow, 277–279

heat, 224, 225, 244–246, 253–254

isarithmic, 293–294

point data, 271–277

projections for, 265–270

proportional symbol, 272, 273, 274–277

scale of, 264

thematic, 271

uncertainty on, 314, 315

Voronoi, 294, 295, 296

margin of error, 300

marketing, 14–15

Martin, George R. R., xiii

matrices, scatter plot, 242–246

McCabe, George P., 240, 260, 262

McCann, Allison, 353

McChesney, Robert Waterman, 23

McCloskey, Deirdre N., 325

McGill, Robert, 125, 128, 129, 224, 275

mean, 154

distribution of sample, 306

grand (or mean of means), 156

regression toward, 102–103

standard error of, 306, 307–308

weighted, 157

measures of central tendency, 153–154

median, 154, 191

Meirelles, Isabel, 125, 149

Mercator projection, 267, 268, 281

Messerli, Franz H., 233–234, 235n

metadata, 317

Miami Herald, 18

Microsoft Excel, 220

Miles, Jeremy, 325

Minard, Charles Joseph, 28n

mind bugs, 79–80

confirmation, 80, 84–85

patternicity, 79, 81–82

storytelling, 80, 82–83

Misbehaving (Thaler), 121, 146

mix effects, 219

Mlodinow, Leonard, 70n

mode, 153–154

model-dependent realism, 70n

models

description of good, 70

dubious or unsatisfactory, 71–76

truth continuum related to, 86–97

visualizations as, 69–70, 86

modified box plot, 313, 314

Moholy-Nagy, Laszlo, 21

Mollweide projection, 267, 268

Monmonier, Mark, 97, 263n, 267n, 297

Moore, David S., 240, 260, 262

moving average, 204–205, 206

Munzner, Tamara, 125

N

Naked Statistics (Wheelan), 166

National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA), 46, 47, 71

National Public Radio (NPR), 133, 134, 338–339

Nature magazine, 116

Nelson, John, 270

nested legends, 276

New England Journal of Medicine, 233

New York Times, 252, 253–254, 334, 337, 344–348

news applications, 31, 34–37

news organizations, 17–20

Nichols, John, 23

935 Lies (Lewis), 23

NOAA forecast map, 314, 315

noise, 201, 219

Nolan, Deborah, 197

nominal scales, 105–106

non-resistant statistics, 191, 238

norm (or smooth), 152, 194

normal distribution, 188–190

Norman, Donald A., 56

Nosanchuk, T. A., 155, 197

Novel Views project, 364, 366

null hypothesis, 301, 321

numeracy skills, 97

numerical summaries of spread, 170

O

observational studies, 107

optimal classification, 286

ordinal scales, 106

organizing displays, 138–141

Ornstein, Charles, 340

Ortiz, Santiago, 373

OurWorldInData project, 229–230

outcome variable, 105

outliers, 155, 238

overpowered tests, 323

P

p values, 321, 322

Papanek, Victor, 65

paradoxes, 219

parallel coordinates plot, 246–247

parameters, 154n

patternicity bug, 79, 81–82

patterns and trends, 152, 194

percentage change formula, 212

percentiles, 191, 192, 284

Periscopic, 31, 34, 65, 363

Peterson, Gretchen N., 297

Pew Research Center, 16, 288, 331, 332, 334, 335

Picturing the Uncertain World (Wainer), 197

pie charts, 50–51, 122n

Piketty, Thomas, 130

Pilhofer, Aron, 253

Playfair, William, 121

plots, 28

box, 192–193

dot, 29, 313

funnel, 185, 336–337

gradient, 313, 314

modified box, 313, 314

parallel coordinates, 246–247

scatter, 29, 228, 230, 242–246

strip, 161–163, 164–165

violin, 163, 166, 313, 314

you-are-here, 211

See also charts

point data maps, 271–277

point estimate, 309

populations, 109

Posavec, Stefanie, 372

power of tests, 323, 324

Poynter Institute, 89

practical significance, 323

predictor variable, 105

probability

cumulative vs. individual, 188

Galton box for testing, 185–188

p values related to, 321, 322

projections, 265–270

proportional symbol maps, 272, 273, 274–277

ProPublica, 49, 95, 291, 316, 340–343

Prothero, Donald R., 16, 116

proxy variables, 43

public relations, 14n

Pulitzer Center, 63, 64

Putin, Vladimir, 76

Q

quantiles method, 284

quartiles, 191, 192

quintiles, 191

R

radar charts, 141–143, 145, 146

Raftery, Adrian E., 114, 115

random sampling, 109, 114

randomness, 81–82, 113–114

ranges, 157–166

ratio scales, 107

Rawsthorn, Alice, 56, 59, 65

Raymo, Chet, 6, 23

Razo, Jhasua, 251

reasoning, errors in, 79–80

regression

correlation and, 257–259

toward the mean, 102–103

Reich, Robert B., xvii

Reijner, Hannes, 220

Reinhart, Alex, 321, 324, 325

relationship charts, 261

Rendgen, Sandra, 40

replication, 323

resistant statistics, 154, 191

response variable, 105, 257

responsive design, 338

Ribecca, Severino, 125, 126

Richter scale, 216n

Robbins, Naomi, 125, 336

Roberts, Graham, 252

Rodríguez, Gerardo, 248

Roser, Max, 229–230

Rousseff, Dilma, 248, 251

Rudder, Christian, 167, 168, 169

Rumsfeld, Donald, 110n

Russell, Bertrand, 103

S

Sagan, Carl, 323

Sagara, Eric, 340

sample size, 188, 310, 323

sample variation, 114

sampling

error in, 91

random, 109, 114

Sankey diagrams, 10, 28, 131

scale of maps, 264

scatter plots, 29

connected, 228, 230

matrices for, 242–246

Scientific American, 360–363

scientific stance, 100–101

Scruton, Roger, 55, 65

seasonal subseries chart, 209–210

seasonality, 201, 208

self-deception, 48

Semiology of Graphics (Bertin), 148

shape of distribution, 158, 194

Shaw, Al, 343

Shermer, Michael, 81, 97

Shipler, David K., 63

Show Me the Numbers (Few), 125, 148

Signal (Few), 246, 262

significance, 322–325

Silver, Nate, 353

Simmon, Rob, 296

simplicity, 97

Simpson’s Paradox, 219

Siruela, Jacobo, 201

Skeptical Raptor, 116

Skeptics and True Believers (Raymo), 23

skewed distributions, 155, 159

skills of the educated person, 97

Slocum, Terry A., 297

slope, 258

slope charts, 29, 51

small-scale maps, 264

Smith, Gary, 49

snap judgments, 80

Sockman, Ralph W., 6

South China Morning Post, 38, 39

spinning planets exercise, 2–6

spontaneous insight, 59, 60

Sports Illustrated, 102–103

spread of distribution, 194

Spurious Correlations website, 234

stacked area charts, 133

standard deviation

example of using, 173–175

formula for calculating, 172

standard scores and, 174–178, 304

variance and, 171–172

standard error of the mean, 306, 307–308

standard lines, 265, 266

standard normal distribution, 189, 305

standard scores

examples of misleading, 183–188

standard deviation and, 174–178, 304

Starkman, Dean, 23

statistical significance, 322–325

statistics, 152

non-resistant, 191, 238

resistant, 154, 191

Statistics Done Wrong (Reinhart), 324, 325

Statistics Unplugged (Caldwell), 166

Steele, Julie, 149

Stefaner, Moritz, 7, 8, 10, 28, 362

Stigler, Stephen, 185n

Storr, Will, 82

storytelling bug, 80, 82–83

strategic communication, 14–16

strip plots, 161–163, 164–165

studies, 107–110

Svensson, Valentine, 351

symbol placement, 275–276

T

t critical values, 310, 311

Teaching Statistics (Gelman and Nolan), 197

testing hypotheses, 100

Texty.org, 76, 79, 182

Thaler, Richard H., 121–123, 147

Thematic Cartography and Geovisualization (Slocum), 297

thematic maps, 271

theories, 101

Theory and Reality (Godfrey-Smith), 97

Thinking With Type (Lupton), 268

Thorp, Jer, 373, 374

time series charts, 29, 133, 201–230

bar chart example, 225

change rate and, 214–217

decomposition of, 201–210

how they mislead, 217–230

indexes and, 210–213

line chart example, 229

visualizing uncertainty on, 313

Toledo, José Roberto de, 248

Tolkien, J. R. R., 374

Tory, John, 254

“Tragedy of the Risk-Perception Commons, The” (Kahan), 84–85

trend lines, 202, 204, 237, 238, 241

trends

observing patterns and, 152, 194

in time series charts, 201

Trust Me, I’m Lying (Holiday), 18

truth continuum, 86–97

truthful graphics, 45–49

Tufte, Edward R., 65, 122n, 336

Tukey, John W., 41, 151, 154n, 191, 192, 336

Tulp, Jan Willem, 361

tunnel-vision effect, 83

U

uncertainty, 114–115

confidence intervals and, 308–312

methods for disclosing, 312–315

underpowered tests, 323, 324

Understanding Data (Erickson and Nosanchuk), 155, 197

unimodal distributions, 154

univariate least squares regression, 257

Unpersuadables, The (Storr), 82

V

Van Dam, Andrew, 348

variables

defined, 105

explanatory, 105, 257

extraneous, 109–110

proxy, 43

response, 105, 257

scales measuring, 105–107

types of, 105, 107, 109–110

variance, 171–172

Vaux, Bert, 344

Viégas, Fernanda, 351–353

violin plots, 163, 166

Visual Display of Quantitative Information, The (Tufte), 65

visualizations

aesthetics of, 53–59, 221

basic principles of, 121–149

characteristics of good, 12

choosing graphic forms for, 124–138

definition of, 28

depth and breadth of, 94–95

enlightening, 60, 62–65

functional, 50–52

insightful, 59–60, 61

as models, 69–70, 86

qualities of great, 45

truthful, 45–49

visually encoding data, 123–125

visually exploring data, 152

Voronoi maps, 294, 295, 296

W

Wainer, Howard, 185, 197

Wall Street Journal, 34, 348–350

Washington Post, 179

Watchdog Didn’t Bark, The (Starkman), 23

Watkins, Derek, 347

Wattenberg, Martin, 219, 351–353

website of author, 152

Wei, Sisi, 10

weighted mean, 157

Whedon, Joss, 60

Wheelan, Charles, 166

Wieczorek, Jerzy, 301, 323

Wilkinson, Leland, 336

Wind Map of U.S., 352

Wired magazine, 75

Wright, John C., 69

Wurman, Richard Saul, 45

X

X- and Y-axis, 135

Y

Yanukovych, Viktor, 77

Yau, Nathan, 125, 271

you-are-here plots, 211

Z

Zappa, Frank, 329

Zeit Online, 292, 294, 356–357

zero baselines, 136, 137

zero-based indexes, 212–213

Ziliak, Stephen T., 325

z-score, 174–178, 304