Data
Data only matters if someone can act on it. These dashboards were built to show what that looks like in practice - using public datasets on subjects that affect people’s lives.
I built them while on the Google Analytics team, to demonstrate dashboard design principles using Data Studio, which we were building from ground up. They’re a snapshot of that period rather than live reporting: the data is fixed to when each was made, but the analysis and the design decisions still hold. Each one is linked to an interactive dashboard - filter it, drill into it, and see what the numbers do.
Vices: Drug Usage & Overdoses
The US opioid epidemic, set against other drug use, compared internationally and broken down by state. It draws on three datasets: CDC drug overdose deaths, UNODC global opioid figures, and FiveThirtyEight’s drug use by age. Open the dashboard →
UK Marriages & Divorces
The UK Office for National Statistics publishes marriage and divorce records going back 150 years, which is long enough for history to show up in the data. Two questions drove the analysis: who seeks a divorce, and why? And how do wars and changes in the law move marriage and divorce rates?
The answer to the second is visible at a glance — the spikes around both world wars, and the step change following the 1971 divorce reform. Open the dashboard →
Maternal Mortality: Status & Progress
UNICEF data on maternal mortality — deaths per 100,000 live births from complications of pregnancy and childbirth — mapped globally and tracked from 1990 to 2015. Open the dashboard →
US Unemployment Rates, 2014–2015
US Bureau of Labor Statistics data on unemployment, segmented by age, gender, and race or ethnicity. Segmentation is the point: the headline national rate conceals differences between groups large enough to change what you’d conclude from it. Open the dashboard →
Writing on data visualization
A selection of what I’ve written about visualizing and analyzing data:
- Visualizing Google Search interest in Brazil’s 2022 presidential debate — Google Keyword
- Visualizing Google Search data — Search Central blog
- Analyzing Google Search traffic drops — Search Central blog
- Visualizing Brazil’s presidential debate with Data Studio — Google Analytics blog
- How to partner with data to create insightful stories — TheNextWeb
- Data analytics: a matrix for better decision making — Google Analytics (PDF)
- Tell a meaningful story with data — Think with Google