I don’t think the bloggers who have posted their survey data have offered any advice about how to plot their data. I don’t think they spent much time thinking about how they should plot it themselves. I think they clicked a button, said, “ooh, pie charts, I’ve heard of them,” and the result is an ineffectual graphic. At least Chris has taken our comments to heart.

I’ve often recommended Stephen Few’s books. I think they are good resources for learning how and why to use particular visualization approaches.

@Jon P, I thought Jorge’s comments regarding how “they often come up with advices that I can relate to when thinking of information visualization: simplicity, consistency, go to the point, remove clutter, tell a story…

Problem is, bloggers about blogging fail to follow their own advice when they attempt to graphically display the results of their online surveys or other quantitative data.”

If this is the case, they could have researched how to properly create charts/graphs. They did not and they failed. They are like everyone else. It is my opinion that when most people create a chart or graph they assume the applications we use to create charts are the correct way to show data visually. We both know they know nothing about charting. Many know that you are a source of knowledge. I, however am not. I am one of those people who have struggled over the years to properly display data visually. I am no expert. Last week I spent 3 days with an expert in Boston, MA. The experts name is Stephen Few.

For all of you who want to know the proper way to display data I strongly suggest you read his book, “Show Me the Numbers”. It is a hard cover book constructed like a college text book. Its list price is 45 in United States Dollars. His website which has a lot of free content is http://www.perceptualedge.com

Oh and Jon, Stephen Few mentions that we visit your web site for additional Excel knowledge.

Thanks again Jorge for making your observations. Now these two fine bloggers can learn and improve and that is what this is all about. We can all learn from each other, regardless of our areas of expertise.

- @dmgerbino

Chris – I admire your attitude, which features openness and a desire to improve. I’m interested to see how Jorge presents your data (I would probably use predominantly bar charts…). The data should start as a simple table. Sometimes when I’m showing examples like this, I even “manually digitize” the charts just to have some representative data to plot.

If you want to improve, you can always read my blog ;D

And you can make your dataset available for us to play. I’m sure you’ll be surprised with the outputs.

I have no predefined format for Chris’ dataset. A graphical table is a good option.

With survey data you must tell a story. Read Brian Clark’s http://www.copyblogger.com to learn how to write good stories and use graphical sentences (charts) instead of written ones. (Easier send than done, but writing some of those stories is one of my projects for the summer.)