Part I. What Will You Design?
Since you are interested in learning more about designing data visualizations (by virtue of the fact that youâre reading this book), then chances are good that you have been the reader of other peopleâs data visualizations. You may already understandâintuitively or consciouslyâsome of the visual techniques that work well, and some that donât. You may also be aware of some of the different categories of visualization.
The first part of this book aims to help you build your understanding of these categories and techniques. We will explain how to recognize and think about them, so that you will be better prepared to discuss, plan, and consume all kinds of data visualizations.
Why Visualization?
Before we dive into the categories, however, it may be useful to pause for a moment and be explicit about why visualization is a useful medium for examining, understanding, and transmitting information.
Visualization leverages the incredible capabilities and bandwidth of the visual system to move a huge amount of information into the brain very quickly.
Visualization takes advantage of our brainsâ built-in âsoftwareâ to identify patterns and communicate relationships and meaning.
Visualization can inspire new questions and further exploration.
Visualization helps identify sub-problems.
Visualization is really good for identifying trends and outliers, discovering or searching for interesting or specific data points in a larger field, etc.
The key function ...
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