Designing Data Visualizations

Appendix B. Checklist

This Appendix is not meant to replace a full reading of the book. But once you have read it through, this should provide a useful refresher as you work through specific projects.

Determine Your Goals and Supporting Data

• What information need are you attempting to satisfy with this visualization?

• What values or data dimensions are relevant in this context?

• Which of these dimensions matter; matter most; and matter least?

• What are the key relationships that need to be communicated?

• What properties or values may make some individual data points more interesting than the rest?

• What actions might be taken once the reader’s information need is satisfied, and what values will justify that action?

Consider Your Reader

• What information does the reader need to be successful?

• How much detail does the reader need?

• How long does the reader have to make any learned information effective?

• What learned or cultural assumptions does the reader have that may affect your design choices?

Select Axes, Layout, and Placement

• Can you encode your most important data dimension or relationship with position?

• Is there a secondary grouping, dimension, or relationship that can be represented spatially? What if you rearrange or invert groupings?

• Does your direction make sense? Where does the data begin and end? Where should the reader start reading? Which way to the relationships flow?

• Does the placement of your entities reflect their relationships to each other?

• Does the placement of your entities reflect ...