Ask the Question, Visualize the Answer (Flowing Data)

Original link: Ask the Question, Visualize the Answer

My notes

Which chart is better?
It depends on what you want to see. If you only care about whether there are more men or women, then you go for the first chart. However, if you care about the total population too and less about the magnitude of the men-women difference, then you go for the second chart.
The questions you ask before visualizing data will help you figure out what charts to use. Otherwise, you end up with rambling, unfocused graphics, which is fine for analysis and exploration but not so much for data presentation.

Found this article through the (yet nascent) VizChitra community.

I realised that as much as I like reading about visualisation processes and looking at pretty graphics, I find writing similar process descriptions exhausting. It seems like unnecessary extra effort to first do the whole process, then revisit it, build a narrative, save intermediary steps, and present it in an engaging way. The process is never clean. But messy narratives don’t make for good reads.

Kudos to those who do this. Please keep doing it. I love to read it. Maybe someday I will contribute to this literature as well. I did try once in the past.