Data Curious (2019.09.03): Visualizing Transit Data
data / curious
2019.09.03
Happy belated Labor Day for US readers! For those of you elsewhere, I hope you also had some time to disconnect and rest this weekend.
Here's another issue of cool data things to start your week.
Read_
How do you design an interface for transit analysis?
Check out this fascinating write-up on the design process behind a new product visualization product from Remix. It visualizes public transit data to help urban planners build better cities.
What does a data visualization engineer really do?
So this article isn't about data visualization engineers specifically, but it's the closest thing I could find to a behind-the-scenes look at the things I do. Plus, it's an interview with the lead architect behind kepler.gl from the Uber viz team! A very interesting read on the importance of open sourcing visualization tools.
How do I make my color palettes more accessible?
Ok, I know I've been on the accessibility train hard lately, but here's another good one: a few more color-blind friendly palettes for you to work with. This time, from a team of biologists (and backed by research).
Explore_
What is the most gender-switched name in US history?
Over time, certain names appear to be more common for boys than girls, and vice versa. Nathan Yau dug into some data from the Social Security Administration to find out which one had the biggest switch. He uses a method called "difference charts" in a small multiples layout, which I love.
What is really going on in the Amazon rainforest?
The NYT explores the issue deeper in this piece with a huge map grid showing the evolution of rainforest fires in Brazil. TLDR: most fires detected by satellite imagery are taking place on land already deforested from previous years (a whole issue in itself...).
Analyze_
Where can I find awesome public datasets?
This open Github repo. Bookmark it.
How big is the painkiller industry?
Massive. This article (and link its link to public data) describes the valuable work done by the Washington Post to gather and publish data on opioid abuse to the public.
Learn_
How can I analyze transit data using Pandas, Matplotlib, and Folium?
Transit data is great for learning new visualization techniques since it has quantitative, categorical and geospatial variables. This very thorough code walkthrough will show you how to anlayze car accident events, make EDA plots and produce an interactive map of the crashes.
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