NYU — Spring 2015 / Week N

Charts

The basic types of charts include line charts, area charts, bar charts, scatterplots and pie charts. How should you decide which one to use? And how can we make them?

Housekeeping

More lecture than we’ve ever had before

Chart activities

Charts are all about deciding what information you want to communicate to your readers. Let’s discuss the goals of these ten charts and decide on a headline for each based on what we think the author is trying to communicate.

Germanwings Drought 1 Drought 2 Drought 3 Middle class 1 Middle class 2 Football More football Buddy Carbon Gay rights

Let’s play a game

We’ll hand you two printouts. Let’s label them, then discuss.

Your goal

Is to make a chart about the drought in the U.S. Before class is over, make a chart that answers one of the following questions:

• Is this California’s worst drought ever? • Are there states that are in bigger trouble than California? • When was the worst year for Droughts in the United States since 1990?

No matter what you choose, this source should have the data you’re looking for.

Style a paragraph of text below your chart, borrowing inspriration from the way Medium styles their paragraphs

Your team choices

Variance has a nice description of some of the trade-offs. And people are working on tools, like Lyra, that blend some of your options.

Homework

Continue to make tangible progress on your project. Are you on track for success?