Principles of Data Visualization
“Our limited brains are incapable of grasping reality in all its glorious complexity.”
What you design is never exactly what your audience ends up interpreting so reducing the chances for misinterpretation becomes crucial.
Cleveland McGill Scale
Important Resources for Surveying the Data Visualization Options
Dataviz Catalog http://www.datavizcatalogue.com/
FT Visual Vocabulary https://github.com/ft-interactive/chart-doctor/blob/master/visual-vocabulary/Visual-vocabulary.pdf
For the weekly memo: Select two examples from the Dataviz Catalog and FT Visual Vocabulary that you find interesting or useful. Include a screenshot of the chart in your memo and describe how it could apply for our project.
Graphics Comments from Jon Schleuss, Los Angeles Times
And the colors. What does “red” mean when it’s used? And what about using too many colors. At the Times we really only have two or three colors: basic default, a highlight color and a negative color. We break from convention, but keeping it simple helps. I figure now I’ll show them how I approach chart building from start to finish.
Also, I see a desire to combine different data into the same chart. So there’s a left, bottom and right axis. But that’s a bit confusing to the reader, especially when things have the same values (percentages vs. percentages instead of percentages vs. hard counts).
I think my big takeaways are that most of these charts should be flipped on their sides. That’s because when we sort data largest to smallest (nearly everyone did) we then think of it as time passing if it’s a column chart (bars situated left to right). And that there’s a downward marching trend. Best to flip a lot of these on their side.
Build choropleth maps
A Comment on Color Choices
A reader made an excellent point that the red shading of the active cases map was misleading since ‘red zone’ is a specific concept in the White House task force reports.
Our shading does not match the red zone definition of the task force report and most readers would expect that it would.
I swapped out the shading for blue-green until we figure out the calculations for active cases per capita on that White House task force scale.
It just goes to show you how color choices on graphics are major communication issues.
Reader Comment: @BruceWard2
Have you considered using a standard for which counties are red? The map gives a false impression that Arkansas counties are not “red zones” for CoVID when they are. Replying to @BruceWard2 and @KatySeiter
Build a Cover Image Using Canva or InDesign or Powerpoint
https://www.canva.com/
Rachell Sanchez-Smith used Canva for a simple animation.
Higher Resolution Graphics in Tableau
https://www.dataplusscience.com/HighResolution.html
Higher Resolution Photos: at least 72 DPI. Practically, should be higher.
–500k or more is a safe bet
–Cropping reduces file size.
Grainy Guidance: https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/59/Image_resolutions.pdf
Higher Resolution Graphics in Tableau https://www.dataplusscience.com/HighResolution.html