Good tools for experts start with understanding the experts.
For twenty years I've studied how engineers, analysts, and scientists make sense of complex data, first at Microsoft Research, then at Honeycomb, and now as an independent consultant. I design tools around what I've learned. If you're building for specialists, let's talk.
BubbleUp
Progressive analytics
Torahmap
Recce
Tabletop analytics(opens elsewhere)
Ways to work together
Startups and teams inside big companies call me for the same reason: they've built something powerful, and their users are struggling with it. Here's how we usually work together.
Understand your users
Interviews, observation, and analysis of your usage data, combined to show what people are really doing with your product, and how they address their issues today.
Design the data experience
Interactive visualizations that let your users explore their data and find answers, designed from first sketches to working prototypes on your real data.
Level up your team
Strategy sessions with leadership, a workshop to get your team started, or a standing hour when they need a second opinion.
Clients I've worked with
hyperparam
Data Blog
The Clock Isn’t a Feeling: Prototyping with AI, Real Data, and a Deadline
How Sketching with Data changes in the AI era
When "Just Claude It" Isn't Enough: Hyperparam Beats Bespoke Scripts for Data Exploration
Hyperparam is a great way to rapidly clean and transform a large dataset.
Answering a Useless Question with the Degree-Degree Map
Basking in 68 degrees at 68 degrees.
Visualization Genres
Six-part series exploring the idea that we can understand visualization tasks as genres of visualization.
A 6-part series
Books & publications
Making Data Visual(opens elsewhere)
with Miriah Meyer · O'Reilly, 2017
Progressive Data Analysis(opens elsewhere)
edited with Jean-Daniel Fekete and Michael Sedlmair · Eurographics Association, 2024
From Usenet to CoWebs(opens elsewhere)
edited with Christopher Lueg · Springer, 2003