#TweakThursday 11: Sort by Quantity Descendingly

Sorting data is always a must for presenting information. Data in disorder is of little value. Especially for data analysts, part of our added value is to put data in order.

Sort by what? In what order?

There are various dimensions to order by. Among them all, the most important sorting is Sort by quantity in descending order.

This is the most preferred sorting order in any case, if no specific direction is given.

The Viz of the Day on baby names on 8/4/2016 is a great visual analysis on the trend of baby names. I especially like:
1.The diversity trend chart using distinct count of baby names.
2.The correlation or causality study between mediatic events and baby naming.

The tweaks I would do are:

1. In the lower part of the 3rd slide, I would sort the bars by the # of years descendingly, instead of by the alphabetic order of the names.

After sorting by the # of years:

This way we see easily which names are the most popular.

2.Each bar is built by stacking up a number of data marks over the years. The latest years are on the left. I would sort the years from left to right in an ascending order, which is the convention.

A little sort can make a big difference, much more effective than lots of bells and whistles. Always sort your data. That's what I would emphasize today.