A Great Chart: How Much Hotter This June Has Been

Cool Infographics: Charts and graphs can communicate data; infographics turn data into information.

I really like this chart! It hits all of the data visualization design best practices for me. This was published by the NYTimes in the article: Here’s How Much Hotter Than Normal This June Has Been

Here’s what I like:

• It’s time series data, so it’s visualized as a line chart

• Year-over-year data is easy to compare as overlapping lines for the same Jan-Dec time period

• No chart legend! The lines are labeled directly within your field of view in the chart

• Using the pre attentive attribute of color, 2023 is highlighted in orange and the rest are gray lines

• The chosen orange color isn’t red or green so there isn’t any implication of good or bad

• The 2022 line is a darker shade of gray, so it’s also distinguishable, but not the focus

• The x-axis labels are only every other month to minimize the text on the page

• The is one example of when a non-zero baseline is appropriate so you can see the details

NOTE: This NYTimes article is behind their paywall, so you may not be able to see the original article without a subscription. I have a limited amount of “gift articles” I can share. You can CLICK THIS LINK if you don’t have a subscription and want to see the full article. It will let you see the article until I run out of shares!