Lessons From My Grade School Writing
As I've mentioned previously, when I was a kid, I liked to write. Recently, I was reflecting on the quality and kinds of writing I did as a kid, and I realized that some lessons I learned back then that…
A Quick Journal Graph Revamp
Recently, a colleague asked if I could provide examples of good data visualizations to share with an academic research center. Thanks to widespread education and evangelism, there are many good (or, at least, not terrible) examples of dataviz in modern…
Book Review: Making with Data
If you've been around Ye Olde Blog for a while, you may have seen me geek out about data art. So, when I heard about Making with Data (MWD), I had to check it out.* MWD features more than 25…
SciComCon ’25 Recap
Last weekend, I was part of a career panel for ComSciCon-Triangle. ComSciCon is a nationwide workshop series organized by graduate students, for graduate students, focused on building science communication skills. It's super cool; I wish this had existed when I…
Data Visualizations, Infographics, and Graphical Abstracts: What’s the Difference?
When I'm planning a new product with a client, one of the first things I try to get clear on is terminology. When someone wants me to develop a "dataviz" or an "infographic," what does that mean? And it's not…
Design and Conceptual Solutions for Color Accessibility
In last week's post, I meandered into the conclusion that, for color to be fully accessible in a data visualization, you shouldn't use more than three colors (light, medium, dark), including the background. But *so* many data visualizations have more…
Dataviz Dilemma: Color Contrast
As science communicators, we want our messages to be accessible to all members of our target audience, regardless of differences in vision, hearing, physical ability, literacy, and other areas. Today, I wanted to share a visual accessibility issue I’m currently…
Research Communication: Lessons from Katie Porter
Sure, US Congressional representatives used visual aids before 2019.* But visuals are California Representative Katie Porter's claim to fame. Her whiteboard is immortalized in song, apparel, memes, and candles. In perusing Katie Porter's visuals, I realized that they are great…
On Onions and Dataviz Training
This opinion is probably going to be unpopular, but here we go: Data visualization, or "dataviz," receives too much emphasis in research communication training and professional development. "Hypocrite!," you yell. "Wasn't the first research communication training you ever attended about…
Book Review: Friends Beyond Measure
Nightingale, the journal of The Data Visualization Society, recently published an interview with artist Lalena Fisher.* This February, Fisher, a former contributing graphics editor at the New York Times, published a picture book called Friends Beyond Measure. The book tells…