How to create a scatterplot with a timeline using Flourish

In this class, we have used many different DH tools. One of the most valuable sites was Flourish. I found their user interface to be very simple to understand and it allows you a lot of different variations for the visualizations. For this project, I used a tool that allowed you to create a scatter plot with a timeline. One limitation of most scatter plots is that you use either the x or y-axis to visualize time, this means that you can only show one other aspect of the data on the other axis. However, with this tool, the data changes with time, and the year is shown at the top. Therefore, you can represent two data sets. This tool is useful for DH projects with multiple data points changing over time.

Steps to using this tool

1)Upload data

The first step is to choose the data from which you want to make a graph. It can be in the form of a CSV or an excel sheet. Be sure your time is a column, not a row.

2)Choose x values

Next, you want to choose what the x values are. Something that is independent is conventionally on this axis, to show a relationship.

3)Choose y values

Next, select what data you want on the y-axis. This can be anything that depends on or change with whatever is on the x-axis. This allows you to show how something changes with respect to something else over time.

4)Select time data

Additionally, you want to select the column of data that shows the time. The time can be in any format, years, months, etc. This is because the time value is shown at the top and on the graph.

5)Add finishing touches

Finally, you can adjust the color or shapes of the plots to make the data more readable and intuitive to understand.

These are the visualizations I made using data containing the most popular baby names over time.

Further resources

This is a link to a set of instructions on using Flourish

This is a link to a set of instructions on using data on Flourish