A VIZ APART

Read My Writing: Books, Articles, Publications, and Press

​My writing and my visualizations have appeared in many places over the years. Most recently, since joining storytelling with data in 2019, I have written on a variety of data visualization and communication topics for the company's official blog. Some of my articles are linked in the pertinent section below. In addition, I have been invited to contribute articles to other corporate blogs, which are noted in the "guest author" section. Finally, my visualization work has appeared and been referenced in multiple books, magazines, and online publications. 

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Books

 

FOR ADULTS

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• coming in 2025: storytelling with your data (Wiley), co-authored with Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic and Alexandra Velez

 

FOR YOUNG READERS: THE RUBY MARKS ADVENTURES

10-year-old Ruby Marks is intelligent and unnaturally gifted at understanding and explaining complex ideas in a way that is clear and simple for everyone. She lives with her parents and her younger brother Royal in a quaint, coastal New England town called Rocky Ledge. Ruby's favorite place in her little village is the Off-Axis Bookshop, an interesting and cozy place owned and operated by Ruby's grandmother, Nana Rose.

The offbeat residents of Rocky Ledge are often dropping by the Off-Axis Bookshop, and it's there that Ruby finds out about many of their problems. With the help of her friends and classmates Drew, Manisha, and Ridley—and with very little help from her nemesis, Mason Mellon—Ruby uses logic, math, statistics, and data visualization to help her fellow Rocky Ledge residents tackle the challenges they face.

With a cooperative attitude, a whimsical charm, and a sharp logical mind, Ruby Marks brings a positive energy to her adventures that is sure to delight young and old readers alike.

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• Book 1: Ruby Marks and the Off-Axis Bookshop, co-authored with Jenny Schumi Paperback | Kindle

 

In the quiet coastal town of Rocky Ledge, 10-year-old Ruby Marks is well known among kids and adults alike as a superstar puzzle-solver, with an amazing ability to make complicated things easy to understand. She spends every afternoon in her favorite place: the Off-Axis Bookshop, a quaint little store run by her Nana Rose. It's the perfect way to spend time with her eccentric grandmother and the Off-Axis customers—the most interesting people in town.

One day, Ruby meets John Winter, an old friend of Nana Rose who is struggling to solve a pesky problem that is affecting the entire community. With her classmate and nemesis Mason Mellon seemingly working against her at every turn, Ruby must use all of her logic, creativity, and communication skills to find the solution—not just for Mr. Winter, but for the good of the whole town.

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• Book 2: Ruby Marks and the Spelling Test Dream Team, co-authored with Jenny Schumi Paperback | Kindle

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Ruby Marks is having a heck of a week.

First, her trusty bike lets her down while out riding with her friends, which means she has to drag it to the Rocky Ledge Bike Shop for repairs. There, she finds her classmate and nemesis, Mason Mellon, unusually excited about some papers that his cousin Sander Beech has shared with him—and whenever Mason gets excited, Ruby knows that he's up to something that she's probably not going to like. Then, at school, she discovers that a huge part of the fourth grade has suddenly started themselves the "Dream Team," believing that one simple trick is going to help them get perfect scores on their spelling quizzes without even trying.

With her bike down for the count, her enemy up to no good, and her entire class believing in something that makes no sense to her, it's up to Ruby to use her brains, her charm, and her creativity to bring everyone together again and prevent the entire fourth grade of Rocky Ledge Elementary from a scholastic disaster.

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• coming in 2025: Book 3: Ruby Marks and the Diamond Dolittle

 

Articles

 

for storytelling with data

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2024

•  hard or soft, skills are skills 

• how many words is too many? 

• what's the right ratio of words to data?

• #SWDchallenge: visualize the Olympics 

• need to know vs. good to know

• pixels are free 

• everything they need, nothing that they don't 

• #SWDchallenge: Napoleon's April 

• order in the sort!

• use color to focus or to compete for attention

• from touchdowns to takeaways: a Super Bowl commercials makeover

• #SWDchallenge: upskill with UpSets 

 

2023

• the art of insight: in conversation with Alberto Cairo 

• how to avoid the “Christmas tree effect” 

• when simple charts are surprisingly confusing 

• #SWDchallenge: what does your audience know? 

• better than a big bar chart 

• showing the insights vs. showing off 

• deliver a "eureka" moment 

• the true beauty of a communications makeover 

• #SWDchallenge: remake a famous graph 

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2022

• when tension is high, get to the point 

• a multi-level makeover: simplifying a shrinkage report 

• eight simple ways to edit a legend in Excel 

• when should I use a map? 

• how do I keep from being bored, presenting the same report over and over? 

• what's the right amount of detail to include in a visualization? 

• how to make a scatter plot in Excel 

• why don't you capitalize your graph titles? 

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2021

• hamilton homes makeover 

• how do I graph three-plus dimensions? 

• your graph skeleton shouldn't be spooky 

• what is a spider chart? 

• "what do you make of this?" 

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2020

• what is a waterfall chart? 

• words are data too 

• you're using data markers? that's bold

• what is a slope graph? 

• "the old way is better" 

• picking the right colors 

• what is an area graph? 

• what is a line graph? 

• recommended reading: elevate the debate 

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2019

• the accidental misdirect 

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as a guest author​

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2019

The Beyond Design Series for Tableau Software

A series of articles co-authored with Layla Manheim discussing the philosophy behind our design decisions, and an accessible approach to design in data visualization that focuses on the information experience for the audience, rather than the mechanics of the visualization itself. It formed the core lessons of our eventual Beyond Design presentation at the 2019 Tableau Conference (and elsewhere).
 

1. Effective data visualizations share this magical hidden structure 

2. Creating, not designing: the four goals of every information experience

3. Beyond the hook: building information experiences for attention and engagement

4. Usability is the most satisfying design puzzle to solve

5. How to build information experiences for comprehension

6. How to get people to remember your visualization​

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The storytelling with data challenge

At the request of Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic, I created the topic and sample data visualization for one of the monthly challenges posed by Storytelling with Data, and contributed to Elizabeth Ricks's wrapup post as well.

• #SWDchallenge: artisanal data | participant highlights and recap

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2016

The Tableau Public blog for Tableau Software

I was asked to write a guest post for the Tableau Public website about my Two Dozen Candidates visualization.

• Visualizing the Lifespans of 24 Presidential Campaigns Using Wagering Odds

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on this very website

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If you're so inclined, you can explore posts from my old (2019 and earlier) data visualization blog here, but at this point the articles are only valuable as curios and mementos rather than as meaningful contributions to a modern discourse.

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​Publications and Press

I include this category as a way to capture some of the places in which my work was included or referenced by other authors.

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2018

• Makeover Monday: Improving How We Visualize and Analyze Data, One Chart At a Time 

Andy Kriebel and Eva Murray (Wiley, 2018) | This book discusses the history of the Tableau community's collaborative public visualization initiative, #MakeoverMonday. It also traces many of the lessons learned by participants over the three years of the initiative's existence, and includes examples of work from many of the most active members. Designs of mine are featured several times, and I am profiled within the book as one of the project's long-term contributors.

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• How Data Visualization Supports Communication

Forbes | Eva Murray used visualizations of mine as examples of how aesthetic and editorial choices can take factually accurate data analyses and transform them into emotionally affecting visuals.

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• Looking Back on February’s Black History Month Collab... 

Distinct Values | This roundup on data.world of their collaborative effort with Tableau to visualize the data behind epochal moments in African-American history featured one of my visualizations.

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• Ten Questions With Mike Cisneros

Data Archaeology | A one-on-one discussion with Michael Sandberg.

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• #DataDiscussions With Mike Cisneros

Cloudstream Partners | An interview by Rebecca Roland.

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• Black History Month Celebrated 

Tableau Public | Article by Chantilly Jaggernauth highlighting a viz I created for the 2018 #VisualizeDiversity campaign.

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2017

• A Breathtaking Illustration of How Congress Got So Partisan

Fast Company / Co.Design | Article by Katharine Schwab highlighting my American Political Universe visualization.

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• Five Visualizations of Youth Employment in Latin America and the Caribbean

BID Factor Trabajo | Article featuring my visualization about LATAM youth employment.

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2016

• Who Will Be America’s Next Top Modeler?

Slate | Jordan Ellenberg wrote an article prior to the 2016 Presidential election featuring my visualizations about prediction models.

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