The Best Articles in Data Visualization
The most useful articles in Data Visualization from around the web—beginners to advanced—curated by thought leaders and our community. We focus on timeless pieces and update the list whenever we discover new, must-read articles or videos—make sure to bookmark and revisit this page.
Top 5 Data Visualization Articles
At a glance: these are the articles that have been most read, shared, and saved in Data Visualization by Refind users.
How to ...?
How to pick more beautiful colors
Choosing good colors for your charts is hard. This article tries to make it easier.
«There’s no need to rely on hues from all around the color wheel like ⬤⬤⬤⬤⬤⬤ for your visualizations. It will look more professional – and therefore more trustworthy – when it only uses a few hues and their neighbors.»
How to choose a color palette for choropleth maps
Part of creating a choropleth map is to choose colors for our map. It seems simple.
How to visualize decision tree
Decision trees are the fundamental building block of gradient boosting machines and Random Forests(tm), probably the two most popular machine learning models for structured data. Visualizing decision trees is a tremendous aid when learning how these models work and when interpreting models. Unfortunately, current visualization packages are rudimentary and not immediately helpful to the novice. For example, we couldn't find a library that visualizes how decision nodes split up the feature space.
Trending
These links are currently making the rounds in Data Visualization on Refind.
Six Questions for Hannah Ritchie, Our World In Data
Our World In Data is one of our favorite resources. It’s brought data and visualization to some of the world’s hardest problems and pressing needs – health, food, climate, and agriculture. Hannah…
«we need to talk about sustainability as an opportunity, not a sacrifice»
224 | Edward Tufte on Design, Data, and Truth
So you have some information — how are you going to share it with and present it to the rest of the world? There has been a long history of organizing and displaying information without putting too…
Origin and development of a Snowflake Map
Reproducible code demonstrating the evolution of a recent data viz of CONUS snow cover
A Guide To Getting Data Visualization Right — Smashing Magazine
In this article, Sara Dholakia presents a guide on how to choose just the right type of data visualization, with guidelines and things to keep in mind.
Best Data Visualization Projects of 2022
Every year, I pick my favorite data visualization projects, which tend to cover a wide range of purposes but are typically for presentation. Here are my favorites for 2022.
Short Articles
Short on time? Check out these useful short articles in Data Visualization—all under 10 minutes.
How are you doing?
A journey of emotional awareness, where we uncover the power of naming and visualizing your feelings.
How Do They Know This?
An informative and apolitical new book reminds us that statistics are not always what they seem.
«But for the most part, official statistics are imperfect but good enough.»
I recreated famous album covers with DALL-E
I recently got access to DALL-E. In this blog post, I use DALL-E to recreate some of the world's most iconic album covers. Can we get it right?
How Much Time We Spend Alone and With Others
Oftentimes what we’re doing isn’t so important as who we’re spending our time with.
Long Articles
These are some of the most-read long-form articles in Data Visualization.
Discovering Data Visualisation: How I Discovered and Fell in Love with Data Visualisation Art
I stumbled upon data visualisation art quite by accident early in 2022, at a time when I was at an interesting crossroads in my life. I’m a neurodivergent woman in my 40s and my life has always been a…
Excel is your most overlooked design tool
A designer’s perspective on the world’s #1 spreadsheet tool — how to build infographics, dashboards, presentations & more
Machine learning, explained
Machine learning is a powerful form of artificial intelligence that is affecting every industry. Here’s what you need to know about its potential and limitations and how it’s being used.
«Machine learning is a subfield of artificial intelligence that gives computers the ability to learn without explicitly being programmed.»
Our Top 21 Visualizations of 2021
Another tumultuous year is coming to a close. While volatility can be stress
The Top 100 Companies of the World: The U.S. vs Everyone Else
When it comes to breaking down the top 100 companies of the world, the United States still commands the largest slice of the pie. Throughout the
«With 14 companies of its own in the world’s top 100, China accounted for $4.19 trillion or 13% of the top 100’s total market cap value. That includes two of the top 10 firms by market cap, Tencent and Alibaba.»
Thought Leaders
We monitor hundreds of thought leaders, influencers, and newsletters in Data Visualization, including:

Mona Chalabi
Data Editor, Guardian US. Trying to take the numb out of numbers, left with lots of ers. Email me… mona@monachalabi.com

Mike Bostock
Building a better collaborative canvas. Co-founder @observablehq. Creator @d3js_org. Former @nytgraphics. Pronounced BOSS-tock.

Data Pointed
Stephen Von Worley. Data visualization and words: http://www.datapointed.net/ About: http://www.von.io/
Nathan Yau
making charts
David Bauer
Curious generalist.
Publications
We monitor hundreds of publications, blogs, newsletters, and news sources in Data Visualization, including:
The Pudding
The Pudding is a digital publication that explains ideas debated in culture with visual essays. Email us: sup@pudding.cool Support us: http://patreon.com/thepudding
Visual Capitalist
Data-driven visual content focused on global trends, investing, technology, and the economy.
Our World in Data
Data and research to understand big global problems and make progress against them. Based out of @UniOfOxford, founded by @MaxCRoser. @ourworldindata@vis.social
Nathan Yau
making charts
Quanta Magazine
Big ideas in science and math. Because you want to know more. Launched by @SimonsFdn. 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting. http://quantamagazine.org
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We monitor 10k+ content sources on hundreds of topics—publications, blogs, news sites, newsletters, Substack, Medium, Twitter, etc.
Which sources does Refind monitor in Data Visualization?
We monitor hundreds of sources in Data Visualization, including The Pudding, Visual Capitalist, Our World in Data, Nathan Yau, Quanta Magazine, and many more.
Who are the thought leaders in Data Visualization?
We follow dozens of thought leaders in Data Visualization, including Mona Chalabi, Mike Bostock, Data Pointed, Nathan Yau, David Bauer.
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