Introduction to data visualization

Overview

► Introduction
► Types of data visualization
► Visualization design:
► Design principles
► Pre-attentive attributes:
► Emphasis
► Quantity
► Color
► Choosing the right chart
► Visualization viewing patterns on different screens
► Storytelling:
► Narrative framework for data stories
► Author-driven approach versus reader-driven approach
► Understanding your audience
► Conclusion
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What is a data visualization?

► A visualization is a means of communicating data,

primarily through imagery, that is both readable and
recognizable.1
► The data typically is abstract. The visualization can help
transform the invisible to be visible.
► Images serve as the primary means to communicate the data,
but also can be accompanied by other communication means,
such as text.
► In terms of being readable and recognizable, the visualization must provide a way to learn
something about the data
► Data visualization also can be described as blending the art of design with the science
of data.
► For instance, while the data that you show might be complete and accurate, many other design
elements need to be considered to best engage your audience.
1 "What is Visualization? A definition," EagerEyes website,https://eagereyes.org/criticism/definition-of-visualization, accessed June 30, 2017.
1
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Introduction

Which chart does a better job of helping you understand the data and why?

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Introduction

Many times, when you hear about data

visualization, you also hear about storytelling. That
is because the most effective visualizations
incorporate a storytelling approach.

Why? There are three main reasons.

► Memorable: Stories will make it easier for the audience to connect and remember the
information you are trying to convey.
► Relatable: Stories lead to emotional coupling. Both the storyteller and the audience go
through and relate to the same experience.
► Lead to action: Research shows that storytelling can engage parts of the brain that lead to
action.

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Introduction

► Data visualization can be a very

powerful way to transform data into
actionable insights and these skills are
becoming increasingly important.
► This module will help develop your skills
and provide you with an understanding of
basic visualization design and
storytelling principles and frameworks.

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Types of data visualization

There are two main types of data visualization: exploratory and explanatory.

Exploratory:
► Allows the audience to explore data for further analyses
► Is conducted for a problem that has not been clearly defined

Exploratory visualization is what we do to understand the data, e.g., to develop

and assess a hypothesis or question or find a pattern in the data.

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Exploratory data visualization
Anscombe’s quartet

Set 1 Set 2 Set 3 Set 4

Mean (x) 9.00 9.00 9.00 9.00

Mean (y) 7.50 7.50 7.50 7.50

Variance (x) 11.00 11.00 11.00 11.00

Variance (y) 4.13 4.13 4.12 4.12

Correlation 0.82 0.82 0.82 0.82

Intercept 3.00 3.00 3.00 3.00

Slope 0.50 0.50 0.50 0.50

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anscombe%27s_quartet

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Exploratory data visualization
Anscombe’s quartet

"Anscombe's quartet,"
Wikipedia website,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ans
combe%27s_quartet, accessed
June 30, 2017.

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Explanatory data visualization

► Explains what the audience needs to know

► Shows specific relationships in data, such as link between causes and
results

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Explanatory data visualization
解释性数据可视化

Images sourced from

Wikipedia at
https://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/John_Snow,
accessed June 30, 2017.

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Visualization design

► Design principles
► Pre-attentive attributes:
► Emphasis
► Quantity
► Color
► Choosing the right chart

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Tufte’s principles of graphical excellence

Gestalt psychology is a philosophy of the

mind of the Berlin School of Experimental
Psychology.
形底原则

Gestalt principles describe how our mind

organizes individual visual elements
into groups to make sense of an entire
visual.
"How to Use the Gestalt Principles for Visual Storytelling #PoDV," FusionBrew:
The FusionCharts Blog, http://www.fusioncharts.com/blog/2014/03/how-to-use-
the-gestalt-principles-for-visual-storytelling-podv/, accessed June 30, 2017.
You can use these principles to
highlight important patterns and de-
emphasize non-important patterns.

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Gestalt principles: proximity

You see the dots that are closer to each other as part of the same group so you
see three rows of dots instead of four columns of dots because they are closer
horizontally than vertically.

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Gestalt principles: similarity

You see similar-looking objects as part of the same group.

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Gestalt principles: enclosure

You group the first four and last four dots as two rows instead of eight dots.

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Gestalt principles: connection

You group the connected dots as belonging to the same group.

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Gestalt principles: symmetry

You see three pairs of symmetrical brackets rather than six individual brackets.

[ ]{ }[ ]
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Gestalt principles: continuity

You see one continuous path instead of three arbitrary ones.

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Gestalt principles: closure

You automatically close the square and circle instead of seeing three
disconnected paths.

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Gestalt principles: figure and ground

You either notice the two faces or the vase. Whichever you notice becomes the
figure and the other the background.

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Tufte’s principles

► Edward Tufte is an American statistician and professor emeritus of political

science, statistics and computer science at Yale University. He is known as a
pioneer in the field of data visualization and has written four books about
information design.
► Tufte’s principles highlight that “excellence in statistical graphics consists of
complex ideas communicated with clarity, precision and efficiency.”1
1
E.R. Tufte. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 2nd Edition.
Graphics Press, Cheshire, CT 2001

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Tufte principles: data-to-ink ratio

Tufte believes you should show the data and essentially maximize the data-to-ink ratio. This
essentially means you should remove all non-data ink and redundant data ink, often referred
to as chart junk. The idea here is that less can be more.

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Tufte principles: data-to-ink ratio
Remove backgrounds

the color of the bar chart can represent different items ,ie.country
remove the 'number of responses' and 'country'
lighten the most important labels ,using different color to emphasize
so it's a lot easier for audience to focus on important data

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Pre-attentive attributes

► Good design leverages pre-attentive processing

in our brains. Pre-attentive processing is tuned
to detect a specific set of visual attributes, which
results in certain elements standing out — all
without conscious thought.
► Visual tools that aid in pre-attentive processing
include:
► Emphasis
► Quantity
► Color

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Pre-attentive attributes
Emphasis: form

The form, position, motion or color within your design can emphasize your data.
Let’s first look at how you can emphasize through form.

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Pre-attentive attributes
Emphasis: position

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Pre-attentive attributes
Emphasis: motion

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Pre-attentive attributes
Emphasis: color

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Pre-attentive attributes
Quantity

When comparing quantity, there is a range of visual tools that can be used.
However, the level of accuracy relative to the type of visualization is important to
understand. Color, through hue, saturation or density, is the least accurate way to
compare quantity, while position is the most accurate, as shown in this chart.

easily to see which bar is

more than the other

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Pre-attentive attributes
Color: no color overload

Using color can be a very effective way to make data stand out; however, often
color is not used effectively. Use color to emphasize information creating overload.

too many categories

try not to include too
much information

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Pre-attentive attributes
Color: be consistent and effective when using color

Keep in mind that color can represent categories, so be consistent in how you use color so your
audience isn’t confused.
As you can see in this example, the same yellow color is used for two different fiscal years.

As a reminder, color can be used to emphasize information. In the example provided, yellow is
used to highlight the most relevant data because it is more bold in compared with the other colors.

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Pre-attentive attributes
Color: cater the color for your audience
red means deficit or loss,
► Conveys meaning
► Red and green considerations:
► Cultural differences
► Color blindness
► Brand considerations

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Pre-attentive attributes
Color: understand color context

► As mentioned previously, colors can show quantities and a range of colors is

effective for this purpose. Additionally, darker hues should denote larger
quantities.
► Many visualization tools provide pre-assigned color palettes that have been
well thought out to improve visualizations. ,darker color means larger amount

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Choosing the right chart

There is a wide variety of charts that you can use for your data visualizations.
Charts can include graphs or plots, diagrams, tables or maps.
Each chart has a different functionality to show the data you are trying to convey
more effectively.

Comparisons Proportions Relationships Hierarchy

Concepts Location Part of a whole Distribution

How things work Processes and methods Movement and flow Patterns

Range Data over time Text analysis Reference (lookup)

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Choosing the right chart

The Data Visualisation Catalogue project provides a tool that can help you look
up different types of charts by type and function. Image provided with copyright permission by Severino Ribecca at
datavizcatalogue.com.

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Choosing the right chart

This is a flowchart tool by that

helps you to decide what type
of chart to use.

Image provided with copyright permission by Andrew Abela.

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Visualization viewing patterns

F pattern Z pattern

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Storytelling

► As mentioned in the introduction, it is very important to apply storytelling

techniques to your data visualization to make it memorable, relatable and
lead to action.
► View this brief video to hear more about the Persuasion and the Power of
Story by Jennifer Aaker:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AL-PAzrpqUQ, accessed June 30, 2017.

Source: https://futureofstorytelling.org/

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Narrative framework for data stories

Visual design
How you show
your story

Interactivity
Messaging
How you
How you tell
engage your
your story
audience

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How you tell your story: story arc

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Author-driven versus reader-driven approach

Best for Best for

explanatory exploratory
visualizations visualizations
strong sequence

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Author-driven approach

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo

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Reader-driven approach

https://www.gapminder.org/

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Understanding your audience

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Conclusion

► The analytics mindset includes the

ability to interpret and share the
results of data analytics techniques
with stakeholders.
► Data visualizations are a very
powerful way to interpret and share
results!
► What you learned in this module about
effective design principles of data
visualizations, storytelling principles,
and frameworks for data visualizations
and more should improve your ability
and strengthen your analytics mindset.

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