Theories & best practices behind

effective information visualizations

Isabel Meirelles
Associate Professor, Graphic Design
Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA
Innovative Approaches to
Turn Statistics into Knowledge
Session 3 - Data Journalism
December 3, 2013

Five lessons

1. Context is key to understanding

2. There is not a single answer to a given problem
3. Solving a design problem requires finding the
right representation

4. Thought accessibility is a continuum,

not a dichotomy

5. External aids enhance our cognitive abilities

Context is key to understanding

Always design a thing by

considering it in the next larger context:
a chair in a room,
a room in a house,
a house in an environment,
an environment in a city plan.
Eliel Saarinen

Information visualizations are good at

providing context and uncovering patterns
that can facilitate decision-making

Martin Wattenberg (1998): SmartMoney Map of the Market > www.smartmoney.com/marketmap

Treemaps are good at providing context within a container,

but not good for comparisons between containers

100% all sectors

100% Health Care

100% Pharmaceuticals

Mike Bostock (New York Times, 2012): Drought during months > http://bost.ocks.org/mike/drought/

Stamen Design & CNN (2010): Home and Away > www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/war.casualties

There is not a single answer to a given problem

A. Stankowski
Visual Presentation of Invisible Processes

Design entails compromise and depends largely

on the task and target audience

Vidal et al.: The Human Disease Network

Poster (2007):The PNAS > http://bit.ly/18vr10m
Online tool (2008): The New York Times
> http://nyti.ms/1aMWXgz

M. Stefaner et al. (2009): http://well-formed.eigenfactor.org

Solving a problem requires finding

the right representation

The brain is a powerful

pattern-finding engine
If we can transform data into the
appropriate visual representation,
its structure may be revealed.
Colin Ware

The New York Times (2008): How Different Groups Spend Their Day > http://nyti.ms/1d4aVxg

Jan Willem Tulp (2011): Ghost Counties >http://tulpinteractive.com/projects/ghostcounties

Thought accessibility is a continuum, not a dichotomy

The acquisition of skill selectively

increases the accessibility of useful
responses and of productive ways
to organize information. The master
chess player does not see the same
board as the novice, and the skill of
visualizing the tower that could be built
from an array of blocks could surely be
improved by prolonged practice.
Daniel Kahneman

+ + + =
information designers

encode

?
=
target audiences

decode

Constraints imposed by data types

Nominal: A, B, C are distinguishable

Ordinal: B is between A and C
Quantitative: BC is twice as long as AB

J. Bertin (1967): Smiologie Graphique

4.0
12.0
7.0
5.0
9.0
10.0

4.26
10.84
4.82
5.68
7.5
3.75
0.816

4.0
12.0
7.0
5.0
9.0
10.0

3.10
9.13
7.26
4.74
7.5
3.75
0.816

4.0
12.0
7.0
5.0
9.0
10.0

Numbers can mislead: Anscombes

quartet
mean
var.
corr.

5.39
8.15
6.42
5.73
7.5
3.75
0.816

19.0
8.0
8.0
8.0
9.0
10.0

12.50
5.56
7.91
6.89
7.5
3.75
0.816

Figure 1.1: Anscombes Quartet is four datasets with identical simple statistical properties: mean, variance, correlation, and linear regression line.
However, visual inspection immediately shows how their structures are
quite different [Anscombe 73].

F. J. Anscombe (1973): Graphs in Statistical

Analysis in The American Statistician, Vol. 27,
No. 1, pp. 17-21

Graphic representations can mislead

Axes:

Topologies:

400

400

300

300

200

200

100

100
70 80 90 00

800
600
400
200
70 80 90 00

70 00

External aids enhance our cognitive abilities

The real powers come from devising

external aids that enhance cognitive
abilities. How we increase memory,
thought, and reasoning?
By the invention of external aids:
It is things that make us smart.
Donald A. Norman

Why A Diagram is (Sometimes)

Worth Ten Thousand Words

J. H. Larkin & H. A. Simon (1987): Why a Diagram

is (Sometimes) Worth Ten Thousand Words in
Cognitive Science, 11:1, pp. 65-99

Ebstorf World Map

Thanks!
meirelles.isabel@gmail.com
www.isabelmeirelles.com