There might be times when you want to visualize data with area, but want to use irregular shapes that aren’t strictly squares. This straightforward tool by Krisztina Szucs lets click-and-drag for custom shapes. Enter values and drag the corners to make longer, shorter, wider, and narrower. Tags: area, Krisztina Szűcs

Welcome to The Process, the newsletter for FlowingData members that looks closer at how the charts get made. I’m Nathan Yau. Every month I collect useful visualization tools, datasets, and resources to help you make better charts. This is the good stuff for May 2024. Become a member for access to this — plus tutorials, courses, and guides.

I had a chat with Jon Schwabish on The PolicyViz Podcast. We talked about the new book and more generally, how data visualization changed over the past couple decades. You also get to hear me realize in real-time that I had not talked about these things out loud in a long while. I mean it’s great and you should definitely listen. Jon’s podcast has...

Teresa Ibarra used Facebook Messenger to text with her now ex-boyfriend almost a decade ago. She exported the messages and analyzed keywords and topics used over the one-year relationship. I can’t say I recommend it — it was surreal and uncomfortable to read through messages from a decade ago. Programmatic analysis can reveal things about yourself,...

The second edition of Visualize This is published. The book made its way out this past week for those who pre-ordered (thank you!), but you can get a copy right away now. This is a different book from the original. There is new software, new examples, and new methods that stem from a decade and a half more of visualizing and analyzing data, a polished...

Last week, a Singapore Airlines flight experienced turbulence that led to one person dying of a heart attack. Reuters explains what happened on the flight and more generally, what happens during turbulence. Turbulence or pockets of disturbed air can have many causes, most obviously the unstable weather patterns that trigger storms, according to an...