I used it show the simulated days of 1,000 people, household types in America, and even used them in lieu of histograms to show income distributions.

I’ve been playing around with moving bubbles lately. While they are perhaps not the most perceptually accurate way to show data, they do seem to help a lot of people grab on to the concept of distributions and how individual items, things, and events can add up to a bigger picture.

To access this full tutorial and download the source code you must be a member. (If you are already a member, log in here.)

Get instant access to this tutorial and over a hundred more, plus courses, guides, and additional resources.

Membership

You'll get unlimited access to hundreds of hours worth of step-by-step visualization courses and tutorials for insight and presentation — all while supporting an independent site. Source code and data is included so that you can more easily apply what you learn in your own work.

The tutorials are very helpful to move from "Oooo, cool!" to how to actually DO the cool.

Members also recieve a weekly newsletter, The Process. Keep up-to-date on visualization tools, the rules, and the guidelines and how they all work together in practice.

See samples of everything you gain access to: