Four pillars of visualization - by Noah Iliinsky

Four Pillars of Visualization

Noah Iliinsky Center for Advanced Visualization, IBM @noahi

About the Speaker

§  Noah Iliinsky §  Center for Advanced Visualization, IBM §  Noah Iliinsky is the author of Designing

Data Visualizations and the technical editor of, and a contributor to, Beautiful Visualizations, both published by O’Reilly Media.

§  He has spent the last several years researching effective approaches to creating diagrams and data visualization.

§  He has a master’s in Technical Communication from the University of Washington, and a bachelor’s in Physics from Reed College

Why Visualization?

Why visualization?

Visualization makes data accessible.

We’re extremely good at detecting patterns and pattern violations: • trends • gaps • outliers

Your brain is a pattern-detecting machine.

When are visualizations successful?

1. Has clear purpose 2. Includes (only) the relevant

content 3. Uses appropriate structure 4. Has useful formatting

A Successful Visualization

1.  purpose – why this visualization 2.  content – what to visualize 3.  structure – how to visualize it 4.  formatting – everything else

A Successful Visualization

For creators, do you know: • Why am I creating this visualization? • Who is it for? • What do they need to understand? • What actions do you need to enable?

Purpose > Content > Structure > Formatting

How will it be consumed?

http://www.apple.com

Purpose dictates the deliverable. Different destinations require different maps.

http://maps.google.com

• What data matters? • What relationships matter? • Informed by purpose! • What’s excluded is as important as what’s included.

http://demographics.coopercenter.org/DotMap/index.html

• How do we best reveal the most important data and relationships? (Position!)

• Choose meaningful layout and axes! • Use both axes! (Both, not three…) • Informed by purpose and content!

Structure: Position is everything.

•  absolute & relative departure time (continuous) •  absolute & relative arrival time (continuous) •  absolute & relative length of trip (continuous) •  stopovers (binary) •  absolute & relative stopover duration (continuous) •  absolute & relative stopover start & stop time (continuous) •  sort order (ranked)

Structure: Position is everything.

Structure fail.

Structure fixed.

3D is bad, mmkay?

• How should it look and feel? • How will it be consumed? • Makes data and relationships accessible.

• Makes importance visible. • Informed by purpose, content, and structure!

Formatting

Structure

Content

Purpose

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pound_layer_cake.jpg

What does success look like?

Formatting should be functional.

•  Structure is geographical map.

•  Colored shading encodes category.

•  Dot size represents quantity.

•  Outlines call attention to interesting areas.

Highlight what matters, remove the rest

• Geography is modified to show logical meaning • Colors encode party. • Saturation encodes turnout. • Outlines group regions. • All other details removed.

• Is the purpose well-defined? • Does the content support the purpose? • Does the structure reveal the content? • Does the formatting facilitate consumption?

• Iterate, iterate, iterate…

Checklist

Creating effective visualizations Choosing the right visual properties Learn how to properly choose the visual property (position, shape, size, color and others) to encode the different types of data that will be presented in a visualization.

Download your copy http://bit.ly/successfulvis

IBM Many Eyes: Learn and Create •  Learn visualization best practices, insights and futures

from IBM visualization luminaries

•  Create a visualization in three steps

•  ibm.com/manyeyes

•  ComplexDiagrams.com

Follow IBM visualization luminaries •  @manyeyes

•  @noahi

Watch our luminaries •  youtube.com/IBMVisualAnalytics

Engage IBM Visualization Luminaries

Four pillars of visualization - by Noah Iliinsky

Design

Transcript of Four pillars of visualization - by Noah Iliinsky

Lucy Zodion Feeder Pillars - Traffic Signal Pillars

Noah Butte

Copyright 2014 – Noah Mendelsohn Performance and Code Tuning Noah Mendelsohn Tufts University Email: noah@cs.tufts.edunoah@cs.tufts.edu Web: noahnoah.

Hengshuai noah

Introduction to NOAH Advisors › media › NOAH-Advisors-Overview.pdf · Annual NOAH Conference in its 7th year ... jan.brandes@noah-advisors.com April 2011 have acquired a majority

More on Abstract Data Types Noah Mendelsohn Tufts University Email: noah@cs.tufts.edunoah@cs.tufts.edu Web: noah COMP 40: Machine.

Noah Today

Introduction to NOAH Advisors - NOAH Internet Conference 2013

Welcome to COMP 40! Noah Mendelsohn Tufts University Email: noah@cs.tufts.edunoah@cs.tufts.edu Web: noah COMP 40: Machine Structure.

Guaranteed Successful Design - Noah Iliinsky

How to Buy a Practical Bike, by Noah Iliinsky

Noah und die arche - Noah and the Ark

CORPORATE FINANCE PRACTICE NOAH ADVISORS · marco.rodzynek@noah-advisors.com +41 799 581 512 Jan Brandes Managing Director jan.brandes@noah-advisors.com +49 174 2010 984 The NOAH

Copyright: 2012, 2013 & 2015 – Noah Mendelsohn Naming System Design Tradeoffs Noah Mendelsohn Tufts University Email: noah@cs.tufts.edunoah@cs.tufts.edu.

HTTP & REST Noah Mendelsohn Tufts University Email: noah@cs.tufts.edunoah@cs.tufts.edu Web: noah COMP 150-IDS: Internet Scale.

Copyright 2012 & 2015 – Noah Mendelsohn Scalability, Performance & Caching Noah Mendelsohn Tufts University Email: noah@cs.tufts.edunoah@cs.tufts.edu Web:

Noah Kunin

The Pillars Press - Pillars Senior Living

Copyright 2013 – Noah Mendelsohn Compiling C Programs Noah Mendelsohn Tufts University Email: noah@cs.tufts.edunoah@cs.tufts.edu Web: noahnoah.

... Noah