Consider the location of your audience
- Not all minds or eyes work the same - universal design
- Make changes to tell your story more clearly
- Program defaults usually not great
- Learn how to save settings for graphs in code
What actions can you take to improve your graphs?
Three ways to design systematically
- Highlight
- Organize
- "Integrate text" (context)
Make data obvious
- Make data visually prominent
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Use smallest effective contrast
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Do any calculations for the viewer
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This means plot the variable of interest
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Show one difference variable, not two variables (before and after)
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Organize your graph
"Visual complexity is distracting and should therefore never be employed to a degree that exceeds the actual complexity in the data"
- Stephen Few, 2021
- Use common baselines wherever possible to make group comparisons
- Use small multiples to show otherwise overlapping groups
- Reduce interior clutter from grids, ticks, labels
Always be consistent
- Label variables consistent with text, not data abbreviations
- Use consistent symbology in related visualizations
- Label directly on visuals where possible