DiY Data Design: An Action Guide for Data Pros
[Coming Soon]
This book is an action guide for data professionals hoping to improve their data communication and visualization skills.
Let me tell you a secret…
EVERYONE IS OVERWHELMED!!!!
Okay, so maybe that’s not such a secret. You’re probably reading this on a smart phone or tablet somewhere with a hundred other things on your mind. Maybe you’ve been going back and forth between different data visualization books, wondering which one is for you.
And Amazon, they’re not helping. Because below a book’s description you’ll likely find a list of 10 other books, some of which you hadn’t heard of but now feel obligated to check out before making any kind of decision…
This is our modern digital world, it is an overwhelming time to be alive.
And in this overwhelming place you are in a position to share data with others. Which is great, because when people are overwhelmed that’s just what they want…MORE INFORMATION…
***
This book was written by a career data guy and sociologist who also happens to be a designer and cartoonist. Chris Lysy spent the first career as a researcher, evaluator, and data analyst. Frustration turned him into an independent data communicator.
Are you tired of collecting and analyzing data only to have the results sit on a dusty shelf or get archived in some antiquated data warehouse never to be seen by human eyes again? This book is for you!
***
What you’ll find in this book.
This is an action guide, the goal is to provide you with tangible things you can do to improve your data communication skills. It’s structured around the four different types of data visualization requests.
Data Visualization as Data Illustration
Charts are the dominant form of illustration in all types of industries including business, academia, science, government, and not for profits. But how do you illustrate data to really enhance the power of presentations and reports? Let this chapter be your guide.
Data Visualization as User Interface Design
Interactive data visualization and reporting is often the realm of BI developers and dashboard creators. Sometimes it’s looked upon as just a different form of illustration, but it’s not just that. Interactive data visualization is User Interface design. This chapter will show you how to see dashboard and interactive data visualization design through the lens of User Experience/User Interface design.
Data Visualization as Exploratory Data Analysis
For the analyst, data visualization isn’t story telling but story finding. How do you explore data visually in three dimensions and find the really interesting things. This chapter goes into the nuts and bolts of visual exploratory data analysis. I’ll show you how to build simple “You Interfaces” that can help to guide your analysis and support your work.
Data Visualization as Report Automation
Are you still spending lots of time copying and pasting data from Excel spreadsheets or table shells into Word document after Word document? Then you find an error and have to do it all again. This chapter will show you how to use dashboard tools to automate your print report work. It will be especially useful for groundhog day reports, the kinds where you repeat simple report structures and analyses for different agencies, countries, states, districts, program sites, etc.
***
This book is being written. The hope is to have it by Christmas time 2019, but at the worst it will be available in early 2020.