Cropping the y-axis thumb

Cropping y-axis follow-up thumbnail

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ActBlue creator blog thumbnail

animations blog post thumbnail

Robert Kosara Headshot

Fil photo

Allison Horst headshot

2024 wrapped thumb

Ben Welsh thumbnail

Chris Cooning

Blog post thumbnail: big insights in small spaces

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Plot annotations blog post thumbnail

Fil Rivière

Allison Horst

Robert Kosara

A look back at 2024 in 24 insights, from our Insight conference to many amazing data apps built by our community, and a look at our own data

Observable Wrapped: 24 insights from 2024

Jason Forrest, data visualization designer and Editor-in-Chief of Nightingale, shares his thoughts on creating empathetic visualizations that inspire conversations.

Jason Forrest: all data visualization is a dialogue

Animation can be a distraction in data visualization. Or, when applied effectively, it can enhance user engagement, reveal trends, and help viewers track patterns across metrics. Here are five ways to use animation for better data viz.

Five ways to effectively use animation in data visualization

Bring rich, interactive visualizations to your app with Observable’s embedded analytics. Powered by baked data architecture, they deliver instant, scalable performance. Integrate easily with vanilla JavaScript modules while maintaining secure, personalized data experiences at scale.

Announcing embedded analytics

Ben Welsh, award winning data journalist and news applications editor at Reuters, shares how he’s building automated data pipelines to help journalists put their energy where it matters most.

Ben Welsh nerds out about building better data pipelines for data journalism

Truncating the vertical axis in a bar chart is still a bad idea, but in this follow-up post we look at how to do it in a visualization grammar like Observable Plot. We also discuss alternatives, such as the relative bar chart, and show a similar issue when using size encodings in scatterplots and on maps.

Why to never crop the y-axis, part 2: how to do it, and what to do instead

Developer Ryan Murphy shares a behind the scenes look into the motivation for, implementation of, and insights from his popular ActBlue Ticker Tracker dashboard.

Behind the scenes of the ActBlue Ticker Tracker with Ryan Murphy

A common rule of creating charts says to never cut off the y-axis for bar charts, but that it can start at any point for line charts. Research shows that cropping the y-axis leads to confusion, even with line charts. There is a useful rule of thumb that helps make this choice, though.

It’s never okay to crop the y-axis, except when it is

Observable Data Visualization Engineer Fil Rivière shares five useful patterns for better chart annotations including pointer-driven marks, continuous crosshairs, staggered axes, and grouped tips — all with examples implemented in Observable Plot. 

Five techniques to improve chart annotations

Learn chart types and strategies to design rich data visualizations that let viewers dig deeper into the data, even in small spaces.

Observable blog

Observable Wrapped: 24 insights from 2024

Observable Wrapped: 24 insights from 2024

Jason Forrest: all data visualization is a dialogue

Five ways to effectively use animation in data visualization

Announcing embedded analytics

Ben Welsh nerds out about building better data pipelines for data journalism

Why to never crop the y-axis, part 2: how to do it, and what to do instead

Behind the scenes of the ActBlue Ticker Tracker with Ryan Murphy

It’s never okay to crop the y-axis, except when it is

Five techniques to improve chart annotations

Deliver big insights in small spaces