Picking the Right Chart for Your Data

- [Bill] Welcome to Picking the Right Chart for Your Data. I'm Bill Shander, founder of Beehive Media, an information design and data visualization consultancy in Boston. Thanks for joining me for this course. I have to say, I hesitated to title this course picking the right chart because doing data visualization, well, it's really not at all about chart picking. That title makes it sound like you find a good chart, then you make it, which implies that there's always a chart for every purpose and that there's a library of choices to pick from, after which all your problems will be solved.

If you've seen some of my other courses, you know I don't believe this at all. However, in the end, when you're visualizing data, you often do end up using standard charts. So at some point, you do find yourself evaluating chart options and thinking about how to best display your data, sometimes using standard forms. This course will help you think about how to make decisions about different charts for different types of data, and more importantly, different communications goals. Alright, let's get to it.