The data visualization in my life is primarily in the business-world. At my day job: how do we ensure that people decisions at Google are data-driven? In my presentations and workshops: who is our audience, what do they need to know, and how do we craft a visual and story to do that?
But many take data visualization into the personal sphere as well: using visualization to better understand aspects of their world or their life. I encountered one such example recently, when a data viz course participant at Google shared an example he created:
"Hi all, Here is silly little thing I cooked up over the weekend. My wife likes fresh tomatoes, of what are called heirloom varieties (not the big commercial ones) - 16 different ones each year in our garden. We used to have trouble selecting which ones to grow each time, for the last 4 years have kept pretty good records of them, so I wanted to see if there were any patterns.
This is my first such chart after taking the basic data viz class, where I had a chance to sit and think about how to make it look.
I did violate the color palate guidelines a bit, to color code each tomato by type. But this makes the type of tomato stand out, as well as the pattern."