Hey folks, I’ve been getting asked to give more talks about data visualization and my experiences critiquing visualization. It’s been a lot of fun to engage with live audiences. I enjoy learning about their experiences, motivations, and limitations. As much as I love this newsletter and the content I post to YouTube, it’s clear that it isn’t a substitute to talking to people without the filter of email or a chat box. So, if you’re interested in working with me on an individual or group level...
14 days ago • 5 min read
Hey folks, The more I peruse the literature, the more I see that researchers need help designing figures to help tell their stories. I don’t just mean the mechanics of creating a figure in R, Python, Prism, or Excel. Rather, if someone had a box of dry erase markers of various colors and they had to give a talk without any slides, what would they draw to tell their story? I don’t mean to trivialize the difficulties. It’s hard! There are many figures I’ve published that I wish I could have a...
21 days ago • 5 min read
Hey folks, I appreciated the emails I received from people after last week’s newsletter. I hope that even if people didn’t agree with what I had to say, it was thought-provoking. Regardless of how a plot is made - R, Prism, Excel (gasp!), or AI (oh my!) - we need to train our eyes and sense of taste to make the most compelling visualization of our data. If you’re interested in working with me on an individual or group level to achieve this goal, let me know. I am offering consultation...
27 days ago • 3 min read
Hey folks, If you’ve watched any of my livestreams when someone asks why I don’t get ChatGPT or something to do a task for me, you probably saw a pained expression come across my face. Part of me dies every time someone tells me that they used some LLM chatbot to solve a problem. I have many reasons for despising the fascination with AI-based tools. I even wrote a commentary that I submitted to mBio in the fall of 2024. Yes, I wrote it. By hand. Then I typed it. No really, I typed it on a...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
Hey folks, It has been great to see the high level of engagement with my weekly critique videos on YouTube. I have really enjoyed making them and have learned a lot about current practices in data visualization. The one problem with these videos is that they’re a bit like an autopsy. We can figure out what went well or what didn’t work in a published figure. But we can’t do much to improve the published figure. What if we could do critiques before submitting our papers, preparing a...
about 1 month ago • 6 min read
Hey folks, This week I want to share with you a figure that resembles many a type of figure that I see in a lot of genomics papers. I’d consider it a data visualization meme - kind of like how you’re “required” to have a stacked bar plot if you’re doing microbiome research or a dynamite plot if you’re publishing in Nature :) This figure was included in the paper, “Impact of intensive control on malaria population genomics under elimination settings in Southeast Asia” that was published...
about 2 months ago • 4 min read
Hey folks! I hope you enjoyed last week’s series on the radial volcano plot (newsletter, critique video, livestream). I think it did a good job of illustrating the various reasons I think it’s valuable to recreate figures, even if we don’t like how they display the data. Something I didn’t really emphasize in last week’s newsletter was that by recreating a figure, we can make sure that the data are legit. I’m surprised by the number of signals I’ve been finding where authors using tools like...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
Hey folks! Before launching into this week’s visualization, I’m looking for a bit of feedback. Since November, I’ve settled into a new routine with this newsletter and the YouTube channel. Each week this newsletter introduces a visualization at a 30,000 ft view or discusses a specific topic in some depth (example). The following Monday I post a video critiquing the visualization (example). Then on Wednesday (or Tuesday like this past week), I livestream a video where I recreate the...
2 months ago • 5 min read
Hey folks! I just got back from a seminar. I’m still trying to stretch out my eyes from straining to see the small text on each slide! If you don’t know why I’m brining this up, then you must have missed the videos I posted earlier this week. I was discussing the factors we should consider when converting figures designed for papers to figures designed to a slide deck. You can see me critique a figure from my own lab here and the livestream where I refactor the figure can be found here. I’d...
2 months ago • 5 min read
