I found the history of charts in this lecture highly fascinating, particularly the examples of practical uses of charts to solve real world problems, as in John Snow’s cholera chart. I also noticed that the historical charts shown in the lecture are still very similar to charts we use today, the staying power and clarity of these early charts is a tremendous achievement.

I also did some research on the various types of charts and their uses, advantages and disadvantages to assist in creating my dashboard. I found that bar charts are easiest for viewers to compare large sets of data, so I will use those to show precise values to compare across days such as distance travelled or steps. I also learnt that line graphs are useful for visualising change, so I plan to use these to show temperature through the week, with a different colour of line for high and low temperatures. Although pie charts are more difficult to decipher, I will use them for less important or simpler sets of information, with tags to show more precise values in the case that the desires a more specific value.