What’s happening to Questions in Dataviz?

Neil

OK, so you’ve seen that I’ve made many book recommendations (though they seem to have dried up recently). And this blog has asked, addressed, answered (and dodged) many questions over the last (almost) five years. Well this post explains why I have found less time for book reviews recently. And it comes in the form of a personal announcement …

Questions in Dataviz is going to be a book!!

It’s official – I’ll be back with more information when I know it. But I’ve agreed a deal to write a book based on this blog, and I’m genuinely excited to be able to do this! It’ll be 20-25 chapters, each based on a question originally raised in this blog – full of my thoughts and writings, with plenty of colour vizzes interspersed (from me and from many of those that influence me most). I’m really hoping it will be a great resource for people like me, perhaps early-mid career in data visualisation, who know the basics, are really attracted to (and inquisitive about) data visualisation, but wish they could do much more creative visualisations than they might know how to do at the moment. Or perhaps they are looking to add more to their portfolio than their more analytical “day jobs” allow?

I’ll start with some intrinsic questions around dataviz principles, move on to some questions where I encourage the reader to challenge some of the standard practices and see both sides of the argument, and then move on to examples of creative ideas that arise from some of these questions. I’m enjoying writing it (though it’s not a quick process!), and I hope to find kindred spirits who enjoy reading it!

So far it’s almost half-written and I’m expecting to release some time in 2022. The longer I take writing this post, the less time I have to finish my chapter on design driven data (spoiler alert!) so I’ll leave this here – watch out for more updates here or via @questionsinDV on twitter.

The blog is continuing, I’m still hoping to nail my target to review 24 books this year and include more great themed posts around, well, questions, and dataviz. But forgive me If output slows down over the next few months. After all, I’ve got a book to write now.

Yikes!