The Truthful Art: Data, Charts, and Maps for Communication

7. Visualizing Distributions

I couldn’t claim that I was smarter than 65 other guys—but the average of 65 other guys, certainly!

—Richard P. Feynman, Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character

My favorite data-driven stories are those that reveal something funny about the human condition. Christian Rudder, one of the founders of the dating website OKCupid and author of Dataclysm: Who We Are (When We Think No One’s Looking), has plenty of them.

Creating a profile in OKCupid involves filling out some surveys to give the website clues to find the people you may be most interested in dating. Based on your answers, OKCupid soon begins sending you recommendations. By analyzing your navigation patterns (see photo, click it, ...