Best Practices in Data Visualization

Why Visualize Data?

Scott Smith
Why?
Cycle of Visual Analysis
Pre-attentive Attributes
We’re Faster When We Can “See” Data
We’re Faster When We Can “See” Data
We’re Faster When We Can “See” Data
We’re Faster When We Can “See” Data
We’re Faster When We Can “See” Data
Humans Are Good at some Mental Math

3
x7
Humans Are not so Good at other Mental Math

34
x 72
We’re Faster When We Use the Learned
Tools and Techniques

34
x 72
68
1
23 80
2448
Much Faster

34
X 72
------------------

68
1
23 80
------------------

2448
Visual Interruptions Make People Slow
Visual Interruptions Make People Slow
DEMO:
Kepler Mission
How?
Types of Data

CATEGORICAL ORDINAL QUANTITATIVE

Asia Gold Weight
Europe Silver 10 kg, 35 kg, 100 kg

North America Bronze

Cost
$500, $2.5 million, $4 billion
Alice Solid
Robert Liquid
Discount
Chris Gas 0%, 2.5%, 5%

Water January Date

Coffee February 14 March 2015 14:02
Tea March
Effectiveness Depend on Data Type

CATEGORICAL ORDINAL QUANTITATIVE

Position Position Position

Color hues Size Length
Shape Color intensity Size
Clusters Color hues Color intensity
Boundaries Shapes Up to 2 color hues
Orientation (Change)
How Do Humans Like Their Data?
More
Position important

Color

Size

Shape
Less
important
How Do Humans Like Their Data?

• Time: on an x-axis
• Location: on a map
• Comparing values: bar
chart
• Exploring relationships:
scatter plot
• Relative proportions:
treemap
Mapping to Insight
Maps don’t have to be geographic
Mapping to Insight
Maps don’t have to be geographic
Mapping to Insight
Don’t use maps just because you can
How Do Humans Like Their Data?
Orient data so people can read it easily
Good

Better
Color Me Impressed
Color perception is relative, not absolute
Color Me Impressed
Provide a consistent background
Color Me Impressed
Humans can only distinguish ~8 colors

This is not
helpful.
Color Me Impressed
Humans can only distinguish ~8 colors

This is
helpful.
Color Me Impressed
For quantitative data, color intensity and
diverging color palettes work well
 A word on Color and Color Blindness
On Tuesday, September 16th 2014, fans of Liverpool FC were baffled during
the clash in the Champions League with Ludogorets.

“So this Liverpool game isn't great for me being colour blind. Green
pitch green kit red kit all look the same. It's just floating heads.”
- Elliot Heard (on Twitter)
 A word on Color and Color Blindness
7-10% of Males have some form of Color
Blindness while 0.5% of Females have.
Dashboards
Dashboards should pass the 5-second test
 Dashboarding for the 5-second Test
• Most important view
goes on top or top-left
• Legends go near their
views
• Avoid using multiple
color schemes on a
single dashboard
• Use 5 views or fewer in
dashboards
• Provide interactivity
 Dashboarding for the 5-second Test
Use your words!
• Titles
• Axes
• Key facts and figures
• Units
• Remove extra digits
in numbers
• Great tooltips
Dashboards
Dashboards bring together multiple views
Conclusion

• Flow
• Data Discovery
• Ease of Insight
• Ease of Interaction Position More
important
• Requires that you know Color

your audience Size

• Data Types Shape

Less
• 5 Second Rule important
Q&A