Some Websites

Perceptual edge https://www.perceptualedge.com/ Probably the single best website for data visualisation. Stephen Few set up Perceptual Edge as a consulting company in 2003. This website contains a substantial collection of articles, available free. It also contains 20 examples of poorly designed charts and how to improve them. The blog provokes a lot of interesting debate. If you are only going to look at one website to learn about data visualisation, pick this one.

The Work of Edward Tufte and Graphics Press https://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/ This is Edward Tufte’s website. I found it a little idiosyncratic at first. But if you persevere, it has some very stimulating and wide-ranging material. It provides a way to purchase Tufte’s books, including electronic versions of some works.

Peltier Tech Blog https://peltiertech.com/ This is Jon Peltier’s website. It contains a lot of practical ‘how to’ examples for getting Excel to do things. He ranges into all sort of Excel matters but there is a lot of good material on graphs and charts. He is particularly good at finding solutions for tricky problems. Evergreen Data http://stephanieevergreen.com/ This is Stephanie Evergreen’s website. She runs Evergreen Data and the website promotes this business. The Blog section contains a short selection of articles, some of which are reproduced in her books. It is quality rather than quantity. Recommended

ExcelUser http://www.exceluser.com/ This is Charley Kyd’s website. It is wide ranging and full of good tips. It includes quite a lot on Excel graphs and charts. Excel Charts https://excelcharts.com/ This is Jorge Camoes’s website. Although it is entitled ‘excel charts’ it ranges much wider than being a simple excel ‘how-to’ site. There is a lot of discussion about what makes good visualisation.

Chandoo.org https://chandoo.org/ Chandoo is one of the Excel lifelines that I have dipped into over the years. He covers charts (and dashboards) extensively. Sometimes the graphic style drifts away from my liking – but that is a matter of personal taste not technique.

Color Brewer 2.0

http://colorbrewer2.org/#type=sequential&scheme=BuGn&n=3 If you need to set up a visual hierarchy using colour, this site takes away a lot of the hard work. It allows various numbers of levels to be applied to different colour sets. It gives the technical specification of the colours which can then be used to transfer to your software.