Six Chart Design Lessons from Visualizations of COVID-19

Important reminders for social scientists when creating visualizations

Adapted from a talk for the American Evaluation Association’s Data Visualization and Reporting Technical Interest Group

I remember the first COVID-19 chart that came across my news feed that prompted questions I couldn’t answer. At the time, the charts were double-digit case counts from Singapore with active, recovered, and fatal cases displayed on individual graphs — a simpler time than what…