Foundations 2
Visualization Design
What makes a good visualization?
Visualization Guidelines
Truncated Axes
Guideline #2
"Don't truncate chart axes."
Exception: Except you tell the reader.
Inverse charts
Guideline #3
"Don't inverse charts—it is deceiving."
Exception: Except you tell the reader a n d it
serves your purpose.
Guideline #4
"Be true a b o u t your intention."
Exception: none
Common flaws
1. Missing scales 1. Wrong legends
2. 3D distortion 2. Bad visual mappings
3. 3D occlusion 3. Uncommon / unknown design
4. Missing color contrast choices
5. Colors are too similar 4. Too much clutter
6. Not B/W safe 5. Misplaced data points
7. overuse of texture 6. Long lines, which are hard to
8. Volume as visual variable follow
9. Un-proportional mappings 7. Missing legends
10. Truncated axes 8. Too much information in one
11. Missing titles graphic
12. Missing axis labels 9. Missing descriptions
13. Unnecessary shapes/ink 10. Overlapping graphical elements
14. Incomplete data 11. Too many charts in one
Data-ink ratio
Guideline #5
"Try to optimize your data-ink ratio"
Exception: ...
Embellishment: Metaphors
Embellishment
Metaphor Distractors
Embellishment
Understanding of embellished charts not worse, but
recall after some weeks, much higher.
What makes a chart memorable?
Top 10 most memorable: top-left to bottom right
for each category.
What makes a chart memorable?
● Color
● Human recognizable objects
● Optimized data-ink ratio
● Unique visualization types <common graphs
Guideline #6
"Add embellishment carefully to make your
graphic m e m o r abl e a n d enjoyable"
Exceptions: Unless it clutters your
visualization and obstructs the message.
Syrian Refugee Distribution:
Letting in Potential Employees:
We must do our share!
Guideline #7
"Chose a title appropriate to your message
or d a t a —it will prime your reader. "
Exceptions: none
Highlight
Highlight
Highlight
Message
Message
Message
Guideline #8
"Highlight wh a t is important "
Exceptions: except you have too many
important things to say:
Solution: show another chart (can be the
same)
Guideline #9
"Annotate wh a t is important "
Exceptions: ?
Uncertainty
Ruginski et al,: Non-expert interpretations of
hurricane forecast uncertainty visualizations, 2012
Guideline #10
"Be clear about uncertaitny "
Exceptions: you are sure about it.
Balancing design
Familiarity vs. unfamiliarity
Clarity vs. Memorability
Novelty vs. Tradition
Facts vs. Uncertainty
Reader-driven vs. Author-driven
...
Closing Quotes
Nigel Holmes states: “As long as the artist understands
t h a t the primary function is to convey statistics a n d
respects t h a t duty, then you c a n have fun (or be
serious) with the image; t h a t is, the f o rm in which these
statistics appear.”
Alberto Cairo calls a Functional Art: “something t h a t
achieves beauty not through the subjective, freely
wandering self-expression of the painter or sculptor,
b u t through the careful a n d restrained tinkering of the
engineer.”
Further readings
● Kong, Ha-Kyung, Zhicheng Liu, and Karrie Karahalios. "Frames and slants in titles of
visualizations on controversial topics." Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on
Human Factors in Computing Systems. 2018.
● Edward Tufte. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 1983
● Stephen Few: Sometimes we must raise our voices:
[Link]
we_must_raise_our_voices.pdf
● Knafflic: Storyelling with d a t a
○ Chapter 2: Choosing an effective visual
○ Chapter 3: Visual clutter is your enemy
○ Chapter 4: Focus on your audiences' attention
● Bateman, Scott, et al. "Useful junk? The effects of visual embellishment on
comprehension and memorability of charts." Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference
on h u m a n factors in c omput ing systems. 2010.
● Borgo, Rita, et al. "An empirical study on using visual embellishments in visualization."
IEEETransactions on Visualization a n d Computer Graphics 18.12(2012): 2759-2768.
● Borkin, Michelle A., et al. "What makes a visualization memorable?." IEEETransactions
on Visualization a n d Computer Graphics 19.12(2013): 2306-2315.
Let’s do it in the class!
Exercise Week 2