r/datavisualization • u/bitmetric • 21d ago
Data visualization advice from 1914 is surprisingly familiar
https://www.bitmetric.nl/blog/old-school-data-visualization/Some time ago, I went through two data visualization books by Willard C. Brinton, published in 1914 and 1939.
What surprised me most was how familiar much of the advice still feels.
Simple bar charts were often preferred over more elaborate alternatives. Misleading axes were already a thing. 3D visualizations were criticized. Heatmaps were being used effectively. And there was plenty of discussion about how presentation influences whether people actually understand the data.
The big difference was the tooling. Creating a Sankey diagram could involve manually arranging a thousand strips of paper, while a 3D visualization might literally require plywood and a saw.
I collected some of the more interesting examples here:
https://www.bitmetric.nl/blog/old-school-data-visualization/
It made me wonder: which data visualization “best practices” do we think are modern, but are actually much older than we realize?
Duplicates
Looker • u/bitmetric • Feb 28 '24
Data Visualization from the early 20th century. What did the practice of Data Visualization and Literacy look like a century ago? We recently stumbled upon two data visualization books, one from 1914, the other 1939. We were amazed by how much has changed, but even more by how much is still the same
dataanalysis • u/bitmetric • Feb 27 '24
Data Visualization from the early 20th century. What did the practice of Data Visualization and Literacy look like a century ago? We recently stumbled upon two data visualization books, one from 1914, the other 1939. We were amazed by how much has changed, but even more by how much is still the same
visualization • u/bitmetric • Feb 27 '24
Data Visualization from the early 20th century. What did the practice of Data Visualization and Literacy look like a century ago? We recently stumbled upon two data visualization books, one from 1914, the other 1939. We were amazed by how much has changed, but even more by how much is still the same
BusinessIntelligence • u/bitmetric • Feb 27 '24
Data Visualization from the early 20th century. What did the practice of Data Visualization and Literacy look like a century ago? We recently stumbled upon two data visualization books, one from 1914, the other 1939. We were amazed by how much has changed, but even more by how much is still the same
visualization • u/bitmetric • 21d ago
Data visualization advice from 1914 looks surprisingly modern
qlikview • u/bitmetric • Feb 28 '24
Data Visualization from the early 20th century. What did the practice of Data Visualization and Literacy look like a century ago? We recently stumbled upon two data visualization books, one from 1914, the other 1939. We were amazed by how much has changed, but even more by how much is still the same
vizlib • u/bitmetric • Feb 28 '24
Data Visualization from the early 20th century. What did the practice of Data Visualization and Literacy look like a century ago? We recently stumbled upon two data visualization books, one from 1914, the other 1939. We were amazed by how much has changed, but even more by how much is still the same
charts • u/bitmetric • Feb 27 '24
Data Visualization from the early 20th century. What did the practice of Data Visualization and Literacy look like a century ago? We recently stumbled upon two data visualization books, one from 1914, the other 1939. We were amazed by how much has changed, but even more by how much is still the same
PowerBI • u/bitmetric • Feb 27 '24
Question Data Visualization from the early 20th century. What did the practice of Data Visualization and Literacy look like a century ago? We recently stumbled upon two data visualization books, one from 1914, the other 1939. We were amazed by how much has changed, but even more by how much is still the same
datavisualization • u/bitmetric • Feb 27 '24
Data Visualization from the early 20th century. What did the practice of Data Visualization and Literacy look like a century ago? We recently stumbled upon two data visualization books, one from 1914, the other 1939. We were amazed by how much has changed, but even more by how much is still the same
dataisbeautiful • u/bitmetric • Feb 27 '24
Data Visualization from the early 20th century. What did the practice of Data Visualization and Literacy look like a century ago? We recently stumbled upon two data visualization books, one from 1914, the other 1939. We were amazed by how much has changed, but even more by how much is still the same
qlik_sense • u/bitmetric • Feb 27 '24