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Robert Kosara Headshot

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Allison Horst headshot

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Allison Horst

Robert Kosara

Given how common histograms are in BI tools, you might think they’re easy to design. Think again. We share challenges we encountered, and how we handled them, while designing better out-of-the-box histograms in Observable Canvases.

Designing better out-of-the-box histograms

An exploration of using Claude to help write basic D3 code for time series data

How effective are AI tools for writing D3 code?

We took a look at where treemaps originated, and how this common data visualization is used on BI dashboards today

A brief history of treemaps

Few chart types are irredeemably bad, but the radar chart definitely is. In this post, we share why radar charts are ultimately a poor representation of data.

Why you should avoid radar charts in data visualization

Learn about eight useful (and underused!) chart options in Observable Plot that will help you to quickly update the look, feel, and behavior of your data visualizations, without reinventing the wheel.

Eight underused options to customize charts in Observable Plot

A closer look at bar charts, why they work better for categorical data than line charts, and why things are a bit more complicated when it comes to time

When to use bar or line charts for time series data

Fil Rivière, Data Visualization Engineer at Observable, describes his path into data visualization, what he likes in a map, what’s hard about mapmaking, and why he’s asking if we need a “slow cartography movement.” 


We can always talk about maps

Bar charts are the workhorses of data visualization, showing numerical data broken down into discrete categories. They can also show counts of items, such as in histograms. This post shows some examples, as well as how to create them in Observable Plot.

The powerful simplicity of bar charts and histograms

Learn how linked brushing can help viewers dig further into interconnected data by highlighting patterns across metrics, zoom in on spatial trends, and focus on time periods of interest. 

Use linked brushing to explore patterns across dimensions, space, and time

Pie and donut charts get a bad rep, but they’re useful for some data and tasks. We look at what they’re good for, as well as the research on how they work, to dispel some of the myths and prejudices against them.

Data visualization insights