Top all-time · #1575
Datawrapper
Company blog · blog.datawrapper.dedatadesign
Datawrapper is the company blog at blog.datawrapper.de, writing about data and design. Since 2018, 44 different Hacker News readers have linked it 64 times, most often “Common color mistakes and how to avoid them”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-29, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (13) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Datawrapper's blog for practical data-visualization advice, mainly on choosing chart colors, including a color guide, a colorblindness series and tips on beautiful palettes.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 13 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
New Datawrapper features, Weekly Charts, do's and don'ts for data visualization, a Data Vis Book Club, and much more!
Most-linked posts?
- Common color mistakes and how to avoid them6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2020-09-06
- A detailed guide to colors in data vis style guides3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2022-03-30
- A friendly guide to colours in data visualisation3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2018-07-31
- How Much Resource Use is Fair? National responsibility for ecological breakdown2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-04-18
- The case against dual axis charts (and what to use instead) (2018)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-07-05
- /colorblindness-part3/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-09-06
- Responsible Visualizations about the Coronavirus2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-03-06
- What we learned from migrating our web app to SvelteKit2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-10-25
- How to Read a Log Scale2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-03-25
- Which fonts to use for your charts and tables2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-09-13
What Hacker News says?
She gives very good advice for us non-designers though use color templates. They are available as book or webpage and by trying out just a handful that seem to fit your needs you can quickly get to a reasonably good design. It works for me at least. https://blog.datawrapper.de/colorguide/
Comment linking /colorguide/
on “Common color mistakes and how to avoid them”Submitted Common color mistakes and how to avoid them as a story · 844 points
HN discussionIt should be noted that the author also has a series of articles on visualization for colorblind people in the same blog: - https://blog.datawrapper.de/colorblindness-part1/ - https://blog.datawrapper.de/colorblindness-part2/ - https://blog.datawrapper.de/colorblindness-part3/
Comment linking /colorblindness-part3/
on “Common color mistakes and how to avoid them”Submitted A friendly guide to colours in data visualisation as a story · 334 points
HN discussionI can't help but notice that many of the "non ideal" examples are pretty much identical to the colors used by companies like Google: https://blog.datawrapper.de/img/full-200805_goodcolors28.png . Apple is another company that's not afraid to use extremely bold, saturated colors in their UI designs: https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline... - in fact the colors chosen in that UI goes against a l…
Comment linking /img/full-200805_goodcolors28.png
on “Common color mistakes and how to avoid them”Submitted Which color scale to use when visualizing data as a story · 234 points
HN discussion(Disclaimer: I work at Datawrapper) For most projects, our free plan might suffice: https://blog.datawrapper.de/create-data-visualization-for-fr... It’s fully usable for commercial use as well. In terms of in-between projects, if comfortable with a bit of programming I would probably look at Vega Lite [0] or Observable Plot [1]. For GUI tools, there’s also the excellent RAW Graphs [2] to consider! [0] https://vega.g…
Comment linking /create-data-visualization-for-free/
on “Datawrapper: Create charts, maps, and tables”Submitted The case against dual axis charts (and what to use instead) (2018) as a story · 152 points
HN discussion8 different font sizes, no logical line heights, some elements are spaced tightly (ordered list, share button) and some far apart (radio buttons). And the primary buttons in image 1 and 3 are teal, but in 2 we introduce a yellow button and in 3 there's a red one. Even though this is about infographics, there is a lot of useful information here: https://blog.datawrapper.de/beautifulcolors/
Comment linking /beautifulcolors/
on “UI design for software developers. Part 1, Colors”Submitted A closer look at the Tabula Peutingeriana as a story · 133 points
HN discussion> Designed to Last Well, I hope Jeff didn't put too much time into finding the color pallet. I don't want to be negative, but this background color just makes we want to run away/close the page. Maybe these links which I collected over the years can be helpful: - https://www.colorcombos.com - https://paletton.com - https://blog.datawrapper.de/beautifulcolors/ - https://design.lyft.com/re-approaching-color-9e604ba22c…
Comment linking /beautifulcolors/
on “This page is designed to last (2019)”Submitted How to Read a Log Scale as a story · 132 points
HN discussionMaybe a different color scheme, keeping the option for color and contrast you currently have. I actually think this could be valuable for you: https://blog.datawrapper.de/beautifulcolors/
Comment linking /beautifulcolors/
on “Show HN: Strongweek, an iOS app focused on weeks months and years, not due dates”Submitted Who Owns the Nile? as a story · 69 points
HN discussion> you have vivid memories of how quickly the AUD, or USD or any fiat currency really has been so immensely rapidly inflated in the last 20 years; hell just in the last 3 years I actually think the last 20 years have had remarkably little inflation in the grand scheme of things, compared to the last 100 years, at least in the UK. I first got interested in this just under 20 years ago when my mum said that my grandma'…
Comment linking /medieval-prices-wages/
on “Mister Rogers Had a Point: Routinely Greeting Six Neighbors Maximizes Wellbeing”Submitted Struve's Flat(ter) Earth (2023) as a story · 26 points
HN discussionFor Germany this one is the fastest and most reliable: - https://interaktiv.morgenpost.de/corona-virus-karte-infektio... Second best is: - https://www.zeit.de/wissen/gesundheit/2020-03/coronavirus-de... Also good are these charts: - https://blog.datawrapper.de/coronaviruscharts/ But the ultimate list can be found at - https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/154808/covid-19-v...
Comment linking /coronaviruscharts/
on “Ask HN: What is the best Covid-19 dashboard?”Submitted Your Friendly Guide to Colors in Data Visualisation as a story · 12 points
HN discussionYou see even if you had power and wanted to do something about ecological exhaustion (not just warming, but resource and land overuse, biodiversity loss, pollution, etc), you're going to run into hordes of people who build their happiness in life on consumption and/or doing business selling that consumption. But effective countermeasures must reduce the absolute amount of consumption, whereas the only acceptable pol…
Comment linking /fair-share-resources/
on “Ask HN: So, what do we do about climate change?”Submitted What to consider when using text in data visualizations as a story · 3 points
HN discussionOne thing I didn't see mentioned, which is a pet peeve of mine, was how it's not ideal to use just hue or just lightness when you're supposed to read values from a dataset. Case in point: https://blog.datawrapper.de/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/full-... Which slice of the pie represents Japan? Probably the leftmost, but they happen to be few and ordered, so it's easy to infer that. Now imagine this is a map, not a pie…
Comment linking /wp-content/uploads/2021/01/full-200805_goodcolors4-1150x490.png
on “How to pick more beautiful colors for your data visualizations”Submitted How Much Resource Use is Fair? National responsibility for ecological breakdown as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThe same author has written three other articles specifically on colorblindness and data visualization: https://blog.datawrapper.de/colorblindness-part1/ https://blog.datawrapper.de/colorblindness-part2/ https://blog.datawrapper.de/colorblindness-part3/
Comment linking /colorblindness-part3/
on “How to pick more beautiful colors for your data visualizations”Submitted Are peaceful protests more successful than violent ones? as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI wrote an essay on methods of comparison in 2018 that’s tangentially related (though more focused on color than position). It was inspired by an article by Lisa Charlotte Rost on log scales. https://observablehq.com/@mbostock/methods-of-comparison-com... https://blog.datawrapper.de/weeklychart-logscale/ With the COVID-19 pandemic, the topic of log scales has even made its way into The New York Times as people try t…
Comment linking /weeklychart-logscale/
on “Learn D3: A guided tour of your first steps using D3, by Mike Bostock”Submitted The tracking companies that follow you around the internet as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Are connected scatterplots so bad? as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Humanity deserves more humane drug policies as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Harder, better, faster, stronger forever? as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted How to pick more beautiful colors for your data visualizations as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
