iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Nick Desbarats @nickdesb.bsky.social · 28/08/2025

Someone else proposed this use case but, to my eye anyway, bars would be considerably quicker and easier to read:

Nick Desbarats @nickdesb.bsky.social · 11/07/2025

For a while now, I've been trying to think of ways to visually and viscerally communicate just how ludicrous the wealth that the top 1% has accumulated is. This one (not mine) is pretty good...

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Nick Desbarats @nickdesb.bsky.social · 11/07/2025

Just heard Musk say that xAI's latest benchmark testing proves that "...Grok 4 is better than PhD-level at everything...". I guess PhDs don't know that showing bars on truncated scales is a bad idea.

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Nick Desbarats @nickdesb.bsky.social · 08/07/2025

While I (thank god) haven't had to do a lot of hands-on work w Power BI, I've seen enough to know that it would be soul-destroying for anyone who cares about making effective charts. I'm sometimes asked to adapt my courses to Power BI's limitations; my answer: www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-wo...

linkedin.com

Why it wouldn’t make sense to adapt Practical Charts to Power BI’s limited visuals

My Practical Charts course is tool agnostic, that is, it doesn’t assume that any particular dataviz software product (Excel, Tableau, Google Sheets, etc.) is being used.

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Nick Desbarats @nickdesb.bsky.social · 08/07/2025

So, all dashboards should be ignored?

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Nick Desbarats @nickdesb.bsky.social · 08/07/2025

Imagine receiving a letter that threatens your country's entire economy, and that also contains so many grammatical errors and poorly constructed sentences that it would get an F if it were submitted in a high school English writing class. Just... surreal.

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Nick Desbarats @nickdesb.bsky.social · 02/07/2025

"How to rescue your failing dashboard" webinar recording now available! My 47-minute interview with Ian Stuart of Rupe Ltd covers the top reasons why dashboards die, and what you can do about them. youtu.be/xL7qHCy-CEE

How to Rescue Your Failing Dashboard - Nick Desbarats interview with Rupe

Nick Desbarats @nickdesb.bsky.social · 10/06/2025

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𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗰𝘂𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗳𝗮𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗱𝗮𝘀𝗵𝗯𝗼𝗮𝗿𝗱 😬 Unfortunately, many dashboards end up under-used or (worse) abandoned entirely. Why? I'll be covering the top reasons in a FREE webinar at noon BST Jun20. Hope to see you there! Pre-register for the webinar here: events.teams.microsoft.com/event/4908a1...

Nick Desbarats @nickdesb.bsky.social · 26/05/2025

Nice. I have yet to find a good use case for radar graphs, apart from some highly specialized applications in which the audience thinks of the data as "circular," e.g., wind roses.

Nick Desbarats @nickdesb.bsky.social · 26/05/2025

𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝗢𝗨𝗧𝗟𝗜𝗘𝗥𝗦 𝗶𝗻 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗿𝘁𝘀? Check out three common-but-not-ideal methods and one good one (IMHO, anyway) in my latest post: www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

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Nick Desbarats @nickdesb.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

Inset charts are my favorite #dataviz trick🔥 Many chart creators aren't aware of them but I use them all the time. What are they? Find out in my latest video (5 mins): youtu.be/n1RCV-NMct0 BTW, registration is now open for my Jun2 live online workshop! www.practicalreporting.com/june-2025-on...

My favorite dataviz trick: inset charts 🔥

Nick Desbarats @nickdesb.bsky.social · 17/05/2025

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Agreed. I cover this situation in my "Practical Charts" course and book:

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Nick Desbarats @nickdesb.bsky.social · 13/05/2025

The dumbbell version would address the "steep slopes" perception issue, but it adds visual busy-ness and I'm not sure it makes the deviations between both series any more salient. The line chart also communicates that one series was always lower than the other at a glance...

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Reposted by Nick Desbarats

Frank Elavsky (he/him) ⌁ @frank.computer · 13/05/2025

The discussion and engagement was so good on this over the last few weeks that I went ahead and added 2 whole new sections to this blog post (worth checking out if you already read this!): I reflect on the discussions and fun that we had as well as provide more resources and a call to action.

frank.computer

Minimalism and the absurdity of the data-to-ink-ratio

How much minimalism is too much minimalism? I explore this question and propose the most minimalist, highest scoring data-to-ink ratio on a visualization ever made as a thought piece. Why? Well novice...

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Nick Desbarats @nickdesb.bsky.social · 13/05/2025

"𝗘𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗺𝗶𝗰 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗼𝘀" 𝗦𝗮𝗹𝗲 𝗼𝗻 𝗡𝗼𝘄! Until May 20, get 𝟮𝟱% 𝗼𝗳𝗳 on... 👉 Upcoming live online workshop (kicks off June 2) 👉 Practical Charts On Demand (6.5 hrs of video in 45 lessons) 👉 Practical Charts + More Practical Charts books (PDF+eBook editions) www.practicalreporting.com/blog/2025/5/...

practicalreporting.com

"Economic Chaos" Sale! 25% off courses and books until May 20th! — Practical Reporting Inc.

I get it. With the unpredictability that's been injected into the global economy, many of us are hesitant to make any kind of new investments, including new upskilling investments. That's why I've de...

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Nick Desbarats @nickdesb.bsky.social · 13/05/2025

Love this. (...though the minimalism-fascism connection feels like a bit of stretch, IMHO.)

Nick Desbarats @nickdesb.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

@duvekot.bsky.social I see your point but, again, pros and cons. If you only show deviation vals, the scale of the "lag" is lost. In a chart like that, it could be that, e.g., in the grand scheme of things, Boeing is only lagging Airbus by a tiny amount relative to total sales, or it could be huge.

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Nick Desbarats @nickdesb.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

▶️ New video (4 mins) ▶️ Should you put key insights in chart titles, on in annotations directly in the chart? I've recently been leaning toward the latter, but would love to know your opinion in the comments. www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU3s...

youtube.com

Should you put key insights in chart titles or annotations?

Nick Desbarats @nickdesb.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

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@duvekot.bsky.social Also a viable option, yes. No color associations needed, but the trade-off is that the chart is visually busier with each category name listed four times (and yet busier with all 20 quantitative values labeled instead of a quant scale with 4 or 5 value labels). Pros and cons...

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Nick Desbarats @nickdesb.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

▶️New video!▶️Why I don't use colored category labels in my charts (4 mins) You've probably seen charts where the colors in the chart are identified by coloring category name labels instead of using "traditional" color swatches. I don't use this technique in my charts, though. youtu.be/RLdsgluOqnM

Why I don't color category labels in charts

Nick Desbarats @nickdesb.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

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⏯️New video!⏯️ Watch me redesign a chart so that it "does its job" (10 mins) youtu.be/QnqpuGeKIxw BTW, live online workshop kicks off on June 2 with early-bird prices ending May 9! Info/registration: www.practicalreporting.com/june-2025-on...

Chart redesign! Watch me make this chart better at "doing its job"!

Nick Desbarats @nickdesb.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

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So, basically, screw small businesses.

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Nick Desbarats @nickdesb.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

Friendly reminder: LLMs like ChatGPT and Claude still f*$k up SIMPLE tasks all the time. All the failures in the screenshots below happened in a single day of typical usage for me. Full-res screenshots: www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

Nick Desbarats @nickdesb.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

Any info available about your book?

Nick Desbarats @nickdesb.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

I’ll take being in that pile any day 🙂

Nick Desbarats @nickdesb.bsky.social · 27/03/2025

I listened to the first hour of that podcast but, TBH, didn't bother after that. They misrepresented several of Haidt's claims, said he didn't address alternative theories that he did address (see www.afterbabel.com/p/13-explana... ), etc. Kind of cringe-y, TBH. Suggest reading Haidt's book.

afterbabel.com

Here are 13 Other Explanations For The Adolescent Mental Health Crisis. None of Them Work.

Only smartphones plus social media can explain the international collapse in the early 2010s.

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Reposted by Nick Desbarats

Voilà: Francis Gagnon @chezvoila.com · 22/03/2025

I went on X for the first time in months to see if there was still dataviz activity. I'm happy to report that it's very very low, in quantity and quality. A few cross-posters, too many institutions, and almost none of it gets good engagement. The discussion has moved away. I'm relieved.

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Nick Desbarats @nickdesb.bsky.social · 21/03/2025

If the intent of that chart is to show the correlation between those two variables, the line segments connecting the points are unnecessary (i.e., the chart could just be a regular scatterplot with each point being a year), so the line segments just add needless clutter here, IMHO.

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Nick Desbarats @nickdesb.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

Well that's terrifying (but unsurprising).

Nick Desbarats @nickdesb.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

Canadian and thinking of travelling to the US? Read this first.

Nick Desbarats @nickdesb.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

I'd argue that *all* connected scatterplots (even simpler-looking ones) are hard to read correctly and prone to misinterpretation. See nightingaledvs.com/connected-sc...

nightingaledvs.com

Connected Scatterplots Make Me Feel Dumb

Connected scatterplots are often used to show the relation between two variables over time. Why use them when there are better alternatives?

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Nick Desbarats @nickdesb.bsky.social · 17/03/2025

Silver linings, I suppose, but going out of my way to buy Canadian has allowed me to discover that Canadian retailers can be LESS expensive than Amazon. Delivery takes a day or two longer but, personally, I'm fine with that. Buhbye, Jeff.

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Nick Desbarats @nickdesb.bsky.social · 15/03/2025

Thanks! Will definitely have a listen.

Nick Desbarats @nickdesb.bsky.social · 15/03/2025

I think there's pretty good evidence now that most of the decline in cognitive ability (and mental health, particularly among youth) is due to a combination of cell phones, social media and (more recently) short-form media: youtu.be/w6NfPHrVilc?...

Jonathan Haidt on the Mental-Health Crisis and Smartphones | WSJ News

YouTube video by WSJ News

John Burn-Murdoch @jburnmurdoch.ft.com · 14/03/2025

Reposted by Nick Desbarats

NEW 🧵 Is human intelligence starting to decline? Recent results from major international tests show that the average person’s capacity to process information, use reasoning and solve novel problems has been falling since around the mid 2010s What should we make of this? www.ft.com/content/a801...

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Nick Desbarats @nickdesb.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

▶️ 𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝘃𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗼 ▶️ When should you use a table instead of a graph? (10 mins.) BTW, 🇪🇺 European friends! 🇪🇺 I'll be your continent of the woods in May. Interested in a private in-person workshop for your team? DM me! youtu.be/TeZx7yMRmy0

When to use a table vs. a graph

Nick Desbarats @nickdesb.bsky.social · 28/02/2025

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Agree that your redesigns are more compelling and easier to read. Why I don't use Merimekkos: www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNR2...

youtube.com

Why I don't use Marimekko charts (and what I use instead)