Top data visualizations of 2025, from Pew Research Center’s designers – Pew Research Center

Our favorite data visualizations of 2025

December 15, 2025, By Alissa Scheller

Every year, designers at Pew Research Center create hundreds of charts, maps and other data visualizations. We also help make a range of other digital products, from “scrollytelling” features to quizzes based on our research and large interactive databases.

All of these products are aimed at communicating our research findings clearly and concisely. Our graphics must have clear takeaways and engage readers. They also must be easily viewed on small screens, especially as smartphones have become so widespread.

Ultimately, our graphics should tell a story about our research, whether it’s about changing media habits or shifting social norms. Below, we’ll highlight a few of our favorite visuals from 2025 and walk through how we made them and what makes them successful.

Related: Striking findings from 2025

Showing shifts over time with alluvial diagrams

Alluvial diagrams are named after the alluvial “fans” that naturally form in sediment from streams of water. Sometimes called Sankey diagrams, they’re a unique way of showing changes over time. They allow us to show changes in the composition of various categories of data between two points in time.

In the two examples below, bars and columns represent the categories in each year, while the flows between them show changes in the composition of those categories. We could easily show this data as a simple bar or column chart, but alluvial diagrams allow us to show not only that shifts happened, but also how they happened.

The first graphic shows how the American electorate shifted between 2020 and 2024, leading to President Donald Trump’s return to the White House:

This chart uses a paneled version of an alluvial diagram to highlight different voter flows between 2020 and 2024. In both the static and interactive versions of the visualization, we walk readers through the decisions that three categories of Americans – 2020 Trump voters, 2020 Biden voters and 2020 nonvoters – made in 2024. With this type of diagram, we can show how relatively small changes drove a larger electoral shift.

Alluvial diagrams are particularly useful for survey data that comes from the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), a group of U.S. adults who agree to take our polls regularly. With a survey panel like the ATP, we’re able to poll the same people regularly, and alluvial diagrams allow us to show how their attitudes and experiences have – or have not – changed over time.

We also used an alluvial diagram – albeit in a slightly different way – to visualize how Israeli Jewish adults have switched their affiliation within Judaism since childhood. The diagram below shows how Israeli people were raised and how they currently identify:

At the Center, we don’t use alluvial diagrams often. But when called for, they can be a powerful way of breaking down changes in various categories over time. We’ve also used them to show shifts in U.S. public opinion about Chinaacquittal and conviction rates in federal trials, and how the number of women’s colleges in the United States has declined over time

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Top data visualizations of 2025, from Pew Research Center’s designers | Pew Research Center

#2025 #Charts #Data #DataVisualizations #Favorites #Images #Maps #PewResearchCenter #PWC #Research #TopDataVisualizations

Scientists just found a way to break through #ClimateApathy

In a field of muddy results, it's among the clearest findings that one cognitive scientist has seen in his career.

Kate Yoder
May 05, 2025

Excerpt: "Liu worked with professors at Princeton to test how people responded to two different graphs. One showed winter temperatures of a fictional town gradually rising over time, while the other presented the same warming trend in a black-or-white manner: The lake either froze in any given year, or it didn’t. People who saw the second chart perceived #ClimateChange as causing more abrupt changes.

"Both charts represent the same amount of winter warming, just presented differently. 'We are not hoodwinking people,' said Rachit Dubey, a co-author of the study who’s now a professor of communications at the University of California, Los Angeles. 'We are literally showing them the same trend, just in different formats.' "

Read more / listen:
https://grist.org/science/break-through-climate-apathy-data-visualization-lake-freezing-study/?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us

#DataVisualizations #Climate #ClimateStripes #GlobalWarming #ClimateData

Scientists just found a way to break through climate apathy

In a field of muddy results, it's among the clearest findings that one cognitive scientist has seen in his career.

Grist

Yesterday we had the pleasure of welcoming our current #DAVIF fellow Clara Auclair to Marburg!

We continued our discussions on #DataVisualizations and #WomenAndFilm and organized the proceedings of our closing conference “Cultural Heritage Data & Power”. So stay tuned✨

#GLAM #DataFeminism #DH #FeministFilmHistory #DH #Digital Humanities #DigitalHistory

Sports organizations are continually seeking innovative ways to gain a competitive edge. One such avenue that has proven to be transformative is the integration of data visualization tools. These tools play a pivotal role in deciphering vast amounts of data, providing actionable insights, and ultimately enhancing overall performance in the sports industry:
https://www.foxconsulting.co/post/enhancing-sports-industry-performance-the-impact-of-data-visualization-tools

We help organizations design and build #datavisualizations!

#businessintelligence #dataanalytics #dataquality

Enhancing Sports Industry Performance: The Impact of Data Visualization Tools

In the sports industry, organizations are continually seeking innovative ways to gain a competitive edge. One such avenue that has proven to be transformative is the integration of data visualization tools. These tools play a pivotal role in deciphering vast amounts of data, providing actionable insights, and ultimately enhancing overall performance in the sports industry.Performance AnalysisData visualization tools enable in-depth performance analysis for athletes and teams. By collecting and v

foxconsulting

At 1:20 PM PDT, Vispero's Charu Pandhi will be presenting "Designing Accessible Complex Data Visualizations" in Platinum 5 (VISPERO).

https://buff.ly/49DmtKJ

#CSUNATC #CSUNATC24 #CSUNATC2024 #Accessibility #A11y #DataVisualizations

Center on Disabilities

California State University, Northridge

In one week, join TPGi at the CSUN Assistive Technology Conference on Wednesday, March 20 when Charu Pandhi presents Designing Accessible Complex Data Visualizations.

https://buff.ly/49DmtKJ

#CSUNATC #CSUNATC24 #CSUNATC2024 #Accessibility #A11y #DataVisualizations

Center on Disabilities

California State University, Northridge
I wrote a new article for TPGi engineers and clients on making data visualizations accessible: https://www.tpgi.com/making-data-visualizations-accessible/ #a11y #accessibility #DataVisualizations #DataViz
Making data visualizations accessible - TPGi — a Vispero company

Data visualizations aim to make information easier to understand through visual presentation, but they can have specific accessibility implications for people with disabilities.

TPGi — a Vispero company
#shownotes for @gamesatwork_biz #podcast e444 are done, and publication set for tomorrow on https://www.gamesatwork.biz and all your favorite podcast feeds! Topics this week include stories on #DataPrivacy in trains & cars, #DataVisualizations of time traveling toads, infinite flowers and #LLMs, #Kiss immortal avatars, #AR architectural history and much more! Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss an episode!
Games At Work dot Biz e545 – Cyberpunk pot holes

A weekly podcast and blog where we focus on metaverse & gaming technology in business, gamification and the business of games.

Games At Work dot Biz | Play games with us!

chart chooser 3.0: another good quick guide for #datavisualizations 👇 💡

#data #datascience #charts #datanalysis

#Water plays a huge part in the workings of the #ComplexSystems that make up the #CriticalZone

#NationalGeographic recently created this interactive webpage with fascinating #DataVisualizations exploring where water is... and where it isn't.

#EnvironmentalScience #SciComm #hydrology

https://worldwatermap.nationalgeographic.org/

National Geographic Society World Water Map

The World Water Map helps us understand where and why water gaps arise, how climate change might aggravate them—and even how they might be managed.