Chris Knox

Global Data Barometer – Data Visualization Challenge 2025

The Global Data Barometer - Data Visualization Challenge 2025 is open!
We’re inviting you to use the second edition dataset to create powerful stories about data for the public good.

Register by July 1
Submission deadline: July 16

Explore the guidelines: globaldatabarometer.org/2025/06/glob...

I'm updating a small app I last looked at in 2019. I wrote it using @svelte.dev v2.15.0 - things have really changed a lot in the svelte ecosystem since then!

I'm not actually certain about this but I believe sometimes the sensors get innudated and report crazy numbers. When I was making river level visualisations for the Auckland floods in 2023 I had to exclude a bunch of rivers where the reported depth was a little higher than Mount Cook.

But if, for example, you think the bit of the Selwyn electorate that has been added to Wigram is more left leaning that the rest of Selwyn you can use the sliders to see how that plays out.

Interactive: Who could win your electorate under proposed new boundaries? If the new boundaries had been used at the last election, these winning MPs may have lost

With the blunt assumption that voting preference is uniform across electorates there a four electorates that might have had different outcomes if the new boundaries had been used in the 2023 election.
www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/interacti...

New Zealand's new (proposed) electorate boundaries were released this week. MMP means that electorate boundaries don't really impact the outcome of elections, but it's still interesting to how the changes might impact individual MPs.

Don’t read this on the bus you might miss your stop…

Was in 2011 - well before waste water testing was introduced. But the price per gram and point (dose) was higher was similar in 2009 and 2017/18 (without inflation adjustment) and the price has dropped since then.

On current evidence that would be sneaking into correlation with causation territory 🥲

This is not a good graph. More on NZ Herald.

www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/meth-use-...

(Paywalled)

Well forgotten is quick subjective - but I think plenty of people who weren’t alive in the 70s don’t know the story. The podcast hosts also found new details from documents that weren’t available at the time.

Mr Asia: A Forgotten History - new podcast reveals full story behind NZ drug empire The untold story behind New Zealand's most notorious drug syndicate.

I had fun seeing how far an article can go creating a page for the ‘Mr Asia: A forgotten history podcast’.

@svelte.dev makes it really easy to export an artist’s vision from Illustrator or similar and adapt it into code.

Also have a listen it’s a great podcast!

www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/mr-asia-p...

Designing monochrome data visualisations | Nicola Rennie In data visualisations, colours are often used to show values or categories of data. However, sometimes you might not be able to or want to use colour. This blog post discusses some tips for designing...

🚨 New blog post! 🚨

If you want to learn about:

🎨 Monochrome colour palettes
📊 Designing better black & white visualisations
🛠️ Rethinking single-colour chart design

Read this ➡️ nrennie.rbind.io/blog/monochr...

#RStats #DataViz #ggplot2 #RLadies

A screenshot of an interactive map showing a much higher proportion of rainbow identifying individuals in Wellington. The National average is 4.2%, Wellington is 10.5%, the suburb called Wellington Botanic Gardens is 22.9% and the neighbourhood around Weir House is 51.2%.

Here's a fun (paywalled) map looking at the distribution of rainbow communities around New Zealand using the latest census data.

www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/census-da...

I’ve heard a few horror stories over the years - lots of spreadsheets and deadlines are often an unfortunate combination!

It's tempting - not this year - but definitely something to think about for next year.

Nice! I hope they're enjoying it - I had a great time there - in 1994!

This is for 2023 - the leavers data generally gets released in July or August.

Thanks :) the p-value was very small - essentially 0.

You can filter to the see the attainment rates for different demographic groups - were you thinking something beyond that?

Thanks - and thanks for creating the list - it's very helpful.

Thanks! - @kiwifarah.bsky.social is another New Zealand data journalist on here.

A new day, new datajournalists on my nerdy list. go.bsky.app/KKnngCM

Welcome to @joshnicholas.com @meikeeijsberg.bsky.social @vizowl.bsky.social @maxzierer.bsky.social @grasjcj.bsky.social

And there is always room for more nerds. So feel free to suggest someone in the comments, even yourself. ;)

I haven't discovered many other people using svelte here. I've been using it for Herald interactives for a few years and I'm definitely keen to be involved in any local svelte events if you know of/come across any :)

Thanks!. I probably needed more nuance than characters allowed - I find it incredible specifically from a data point of view - i.e that adding up this list of variables www.educationcounts.govt.nz/__data/asset... for every student and then averaging over the student population is so predictive.

This was the first interactive I've rebuilt using @svelte.dev v5. State management between components was definitely cleaner and easier.

I tried out the new @tailwindcss.com v4 beta - the new prefix system combined with css variables is great when embedding in a site that also uses tailwind. /end

How does your school rate? Latest NCEA, University Entrance results at every college ranked Where does your school rank? Which ones stand out, and why?

The screenshot shows my old school - Logan Park High School - and you can see all the NZ schools in our (paywalled) article www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/...

Some technical details to follow 2/-

A screenshot of an interactive graphic showing the relationship between social barriers to education and outcomes.

I'm happy with how our interactive of every school's NCEA results has evolved. Lots of information is readily available to readers and each school's achievement rate is shown in context.

It is incredible, and concerning, how well the new(ish) equity measure predicts outcomes. 1/-
#ddj #datavis

A screenshot of a line graph showing a pretty consistent number - about 8500 - of under 17 year old state school leavers between 2014 and 2019. The number increases by 44% from then until 2023.

Last year 44% more students left New Zealand state schools without NCEA L3 and before they turned 17 than during 2017–19.

Read more on NZ Herald here www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/post-covi...

Material Matters: The ghost buildings on the earthquake-prone building register Our Material Matters series is taking a look at earthquake-strengthening costs and implications in a series of articlesThe Government this year extended the dea...

I was shocked to find sparkling new buildings on the earthquake-prone building registry in New Zealand.

In two instances, buildings were demolished but were still listed as an active risk until I started asking questions.

For BusinessDesk:
businessdesk.co.nz/article/mate...