As a society we've practically dismissed many of the popular forms of charting as useless because most of the charts that we see are just ugly at best or, at worst, fail to communicate any actionable information. But while charts are often deemed failures unless they illustrate dramatic changes or unseen trends, their increasing abundance in popular media has also led to an increase in literacy that makes our job of communicating visual information a lot easier than it has been historically. (We don't have to explain to our audience what a time series is anymore!) Note, though, that it's important to keep common assumptions in mind when you're creating graphs. For instance, since most people expect time to be represented left to right on the x-axis, presenting it vertically or from right to left may confuse your audience no matter how clearly your axes are marked.
Before we get into the perceptual (and even cultural) qualities of various charting forms, though, let's step back and wrap our heads around what it is, exactly, that makes a chart a chart.
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Charted Territory
Data visualization's most recognized form is the chart. You've seen charts all over the place, from PowerPoint presentations and stock tickers to public polling results and election predictions. Even the humble and oft-misused pie chart, though derided by visualization critics for its perceptual shortcomings, is still useful for comic effect:
As a society we've practically dismissed many of the popular forms of charting as useless because most of the charts that we see are just ugly at best or, at worst, fail to communicate any actionable information. But while charts are often deemed failures unless they illustrate dramatic changes or unseen trends, their increasing abundance in popular media has also led to an increase in literacy that makes our job of communicating visual information a lot easier than it has been historically. (We don't have to explain to our audience what a time series is anymore!) Note, though, that it's important to keep common assumptions in mind when you're creating graphs. For instance, since most people expect time to be represented left to right on the x-axis, presenting it vertically or from right to left may confuse your audience no matter how clearly your axes are marked.
Before we get into the perceptual (and even cultural) qualities of various charting forms, though, let's step back and wrap our heads around what it is, exactly, that makes a chart a chart.
As a society we've practically dismissed many of the popular forms of charting as useless because most of the charts that we see are just ugly at best or, at worst, fail to communicate any actionable information. But while charts are often deemed failures unless they illustrate dramatic changes or unseen trends, their increasing abundance in popular media has also led to an increase in literacy that makes our job of communicating visual information a lot easier than it has been historically. (We don't have to explain to our audience what a time series is anymore!) Note, though, that it's important to keep common assumptions in mind when you're creating graphs. For instance, since most people expect time to be represented left to right on the x-axis, presenting it vertically or from right to left may confuse your audience no matter how clearly your axes are marked.
Before we get into the perceptual (and even cultural) qualities of various charting forms, though, let's step back and wrap our heads around what it is, exactly, that makes a chart a chart.
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Introduction
Data visualization is a pretty literal term that means, quite simply, the visual representation of quantitative data. In this course we'll learn common techniques for visualizing data, as well as some strategies for managing information digitally. But first, a brief history.
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The Value of Many Eyes