They succeeded in demonstrating their alternate thesis that Excel can be made to look less bad than default Excel. However, that is a lot of clicking for some cookie cutter visualizations.<p>I would posit that an "ultimate" visualization tool would allow me to exploratorily map aspects of my data to various aesthetic properties of the plot, such as size, color, shape, and transparency. I'd also expect to be able to get something reasonably close to publication quality straight out of the software without a whole bunch of tweaks.<p>I was hoping that this post would show me something about visualization workflow or extensions they'd written to ease some of the old pain points. As it is, they lead with a statement that is pretty laughable if we compare to ggplot2 or Tableau.
The problem with Excel is not visualization, it's sharing and updating. If you want to compete in visualization, look at Power Point, not Excel.<p>I really look forward the day somebody tackles the issue of sharing/updating spreadsheets across many users that speak different languages, are in different countries, etc.
Lighting everything is a fashion which will disappear. People need to BE ABLE to read as FAST as they can. Light fonts are that perk which makes things 'look' great but convey little information.<p>Otherwise, great and clear ideas.
Excel is not at all a bad visualization tool...it's just that the lowest-common denominator of white-collar types use it, hence, the seemingly many terrible examples. By the time you're skilled enough to figure out R or D3, you're less likely to do something completely ugly...often because it's <i>hard</i> to add flair. However, D3 is starting to see way too many people who think adding force-directed balls is a good visualization, when such an interface is worse than what most Excel visualizations end up being.<p>I was hoping the OP would focus on the beauty of the table as a visualization, something I wish was used more often despite its simplicity.<p>Tufte's small multiples is a kind of table, and a very effective one. This was one of my favorite examples he uses in his books, and helped to get Gotti acquitted:<p><a href="http://www.thejuryexpert.com/wp-content/uploads/gotti.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://www.thejuryexpert.com/wp-content/uploads/gotti.jpg</a><p>Here's a modern take by the NYTimes:<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/08/24/sports/top-finishers-of-the-tour-de-france-tainted-by-doping.html?_r=0" rel="nofollow">http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/08/24/sports/top-fin...</a>