Why Datawrapper is a data visualisation newbie’s saving grace

I created the visualisation below using data compiled from my own data-driven investigation into the rehousing of domestic abuse victims across London.  I submitted the resulting story (without the visualisation) for a City project on sourcing stories using the Freedom of Information Act and it was published on Help Me Investigate Welfare.

Visualisation: Jess Denham

Although simple, the grouped column charts display some of my key findings clearly, using colour to distinguish between the years 2008-2012. The main story told by this visualisation is that the number of children involved in domestic violence related re-housing applications has risen dramatically over the five year period. I highlighted this data in the visualisation to draw the eye towards it first.

So how did I create this modest but effective data viz? Well, I had a play with the very user-friendly Datawrapper.

Here’s what I did

• Created an account- quick and easy to do.

• Copy and pasted the data I wished to use from Excel into the box labelled ‘Upload Data’ and clicked ‘Upload and continue’.

• Ticked ‘First row as label’ and ‘First column as label’ as I wanted both the column names (in the first row) and the years (in the first column) to be taken as labels, added a credit and clicked ‘Visualise’.

• I selected the ‘Grouped column chart’ style after deciding that it would present my comparison-based story the best (see my  post on selecting the most appropriate style of visualisation for your data), gave it a title, and customised the colour scheme by clicking ‘define custom colors’. I opted for contrasting colours to set the years apart.

• To highlight my most important data series- the one involving children- I clicked ‘Highlight’ under ‘Tell the story’ and selected ‘Children involved aged 16 or under’ from the drop-down menu.

• I clicked ‘Publish’ and voila! My chart was published and I could copy the link to share it. Embedding does not work on my WordPress-hosted blog, but I took a screenshot and linked from that instead, as above.

I messed around with some other data from my spreadsheet, to explore the different styles and possiblities.

Below is another humble offering, a line graph that shows a clear increase in the waiting times that domestic violence rehousing applicants are forced to suffer before being permanently re-housed.

Visualisation: Jess Denham

I would thoroughly recommend Datawrapper as it really is accessible to anybody keen to give simple data visualisation a go.