Making pretty charts that actually mean something

ben@bensullins.com@bensullins

warm-up

Name an opposite

Tree River

Name an opposite

couch rug

Name an opposite

BooGrumpy Cat

List 3 alternate uses

MaskRecycle Bin

Speaker

Paper WeightHockey PuckTable Leveler

How did the chicken cross the road?

He walked…

How did the legless chicken cross the road?

On his wing tips!

what is beauty?

cognos

Microstrategy

http://vizcandy.blogspot.com/2013/07/replicating-new-york-times-d3js-chart.html

Oracle PeopleSoft

http://vizcandy.blogspot.ca/p/tableau-8-redoux.html

Business Objects

QlickView

Why is data beautiful?

“Beauty is about perception, not about

make-up.”

Kevyn Aucoin (makeup artist / photographer)

Selective Attention Test

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo&feature=youtu.be&fullscreen=1

Count how many times the number “5” appears

Now count the number of time “5” appears in the same set of numbers

Attentive Processing

Pre-attentive Processing

Which product categories are trending up?

Which product categories are trending up?

Attentive

Pre-attentive

What are our best Product Sub-Categories?

What are our best Product Sub-Categories?

Which product categories are doing good this year?

Which product categories are doing good this year?

why stats aren’t enough

Data Stats

Data VisualizedStats Visualized

Francis Anscombe, 1973

How to make data

beautiful?

Reduce non-data pixelsthen

Enhance data pixels

“Above all else, show the data”

Edward Tufte, 1983

Data-ink ratio

Edward Tufte, 1983

Data-pixel ratio

Stephen Few, 2004

How can we increase the data-pixel ratio?

How can we increase the data-pixel ratio?

How can we increase the data-pixel ratio?

enhance data-pixels

granularity

Granularity, which is right?

Monthly Daily

Granularity, which is right?

Sub-Category Category

size & scale

Bubbles on a map

Sizing Bars – preserve true portions

position

angle

Connect dots/bars to show trends over time

color

Color – proper use

Color – improper use

Color – what does your mind do here?

annotation

Annotation – reference lines

Annotation – grid lines

Annotation – grid lines

Darkhorse Analytics Example

bensullins.com

Sources

Information Visualization: Perception for Design- Colin Ware

Designing Effective Tables and Graphs - Stephen Few

Which chart or graph is right for you?- Tableau Software

Now You See It: Tableau 2008 Users Conference- Stephen Few

Tapping the Power of Visual Perception- Stephen Few

Designing Data – Typekit blog- Mike Sall

Anscombe’s Quartet – Wikipedia- Francis Anscombe

Data Viz Techniques in Tableau- Andy Kriebel