Show HN: Tufte's discrete sparklines using D3.js(dataviztalk.blogspot.com)

70 pointsby roovizvor 11 Jahren8 comments

dataviztalk.blogspot.com

Show HN: Tufte's discrete sparklines using D3.js

http://dataviztalk.blogspot.com/2016/01/how-to-make-tuftes-discrete-sparklines.html

8 comments

jonahxvor 11 Jahren

Curious what the advantage is (in general) of sparklines over, say, a line of circles with filled in = win and empty = loss? you could use a red fill color for streaks of 4 or more. It seems to me a solution like that would have less clutter and better communicate the data...

goldenchromevor 11 Jahren

A single line of circles allows for less information density. If you force it to have the same information density then you lose a lot of legibility. Secondly, it's possibly harder to see where outliers are. I find this especially true when the vast majority of the dataset is 0, and you're looking for the outlying 1s.

See this example I mocked up, where each line has the same number of data points: http://i.imgur.com/xRoY41c.png

roovizvor 11 Jahren

Thanks, that example illustrates the information density point very well!

jonahxvor 11 Jahren

Thanks for taking the time to do that.

kpilvor 11 Jahren

What does the partial horizontal line indicate in Tufte's example?

indyzvor 11 Jahren

Looking at the Bosox 2009 schedule, it looks like the horizontal line indicates home games.

macintuxvor 11 Jahren

Indeed. 2nd paragraph on the linked page:

"This example is from Tufte's site, and was made in collaboration with Adam Schwartz. The presence of a horizontal line represents a home game."

danielhelliervor 11 Jahren

Would have been better had you used SVG.