After a few weeks of leaving my UN Arms Trade Treaty vote data alone, it finally came to me: I overcomplicated the process. For what I wanted to do – input the data and make a bubble chart – I never needed the entire list of countries; I just needed the numbers.
So with my head held high and a bit of a spring in my digital step, I went back to Many Eyes with a much simpler table.
When Many Eyes works, it is the easiest tool in the world. Here’s what you do to make your own, simple visualisations:
Make sure your data is formatted correctly! That’s what’ll get you in the end if you’re not careful. A simple copy-and-paste from Excel should do the trick.
Paste it. Easy as that.
Make sure that Many Eyes processed it correctly! If you’re receiving error messages, something is up.
And then give it a bit of a description. Remember, it’s public!
Once it’s uploaded, choose your favoured visualisation. Remember, James Ball will kill you if you use word clouds. I personally have a soft spot for bubble charts, but for the purposes of this how-to guide, I’m going to use a bar chart.
Then, if you are lucky, you won’t get THIS:
Guess what. I DID get that. So, at a later date, you’ll see my finished bar chart.