01 Usepencilandpaper
02 Contentisfirst
03 Donotdrawgraphsbyhand
04 Donotenlargenumbers
05 Usewords,notjustimages
06 Usesmallmultiples
07 Donotbunglethemeaning
08 Donotcreateop-art
09 Donotuselittledotsfornumbers
10 Donotusecolors(tobememorized)
11 Sortbyvalue,notcategory
12 Equallyspacetimeintervalsintimelines
13 Avoidmeaninglessconceptmaps
14 Youcanusesmalltype
15 Donotscreentype
16 Psychologyofperception
Small Handbook of Information Design:16 Principles for Better Data Visualizations
SomeoftheseprinciplesarebasedinpartonEdwardTufte’sbooksandworkshops.To print more booklets:bit.ly/1bhDU4yThanks(andapologies)tomystudentsforshowingdetailsfromtheirvariousprojects.PinoTrogu©July2013–Secondedition–trogu.com
Pino Trogu
Small Handbook of Information Design:16 Principles for Better Data Visualizations
Everygraphicisanadhocconstruction,thereforetheserulescanbebrokendependingonthecontext.Howeveryoushouldtrytodothegraphicbyfollowingtheserulesfirstandbreakthemlaterifnecessary.
SanFranciscoStateUniversityCollegeofLiberalandCreativeArtsDepartmentofDesignandIndustry
DAI523InformationDesign1:DataVisualizationFall2013
infodesignhandbook2013duplexprintingbooklet2UPfrom3.6875x5.75.indd1 8/11/1312:40PM
Notes: Notes:
infodesignhandbook2013duplexprintingbooklet2UPfrom3.6875x5.75.indd2 8/11/1312:40PM
16 Psychology of perception
Beawareofthefollowingtermsrelatedtocognitivepsychologyandpsychologyofperception:workingmemory,co-constructionofmeaning,backgroundknowledge,conventionsofrepresentation,cultural(visualandverbal)conventions,context,genre,theannotationlayer,closure.
Formoreinformationaboutthetermsabove,readmytwopapers:The Four-Second Windowhttp://bit.ly/Ve2mphandThe Double Constraints of Convention and Cognition in Successful Graphic Designhttp://bit.ly/12zLinLVisitURLstodownloadthePDFsofthearticles.
NA
SA
Intheearlyandlaterphasesofaproject,simplyusepencilandpaperasyourdesigntools,usegraphpaperifneeded,tosketchideas,tryoutdesigns,andworkoutyourproposal.Workonyourideasandyourconceptsbysketchingyourvisualizations.Solveproblemsthroughsketchingbyhand,notbystaringatacomputerscreen.
01 Use pencil and paper
infodesignhandbook2013duplexprintingbooklet2UPfrom3.6875x5.75.indd3 8/11/1312:40PM
02 Content is first
Contentisfirst,formissecond.Selectinterestingcontent.Content-lessstuffproducesform-less,uninformativevisualizations.Thismeansthatyouneedoneormoredatasetsthatarerichwithdata.Manycolumnsandmanyrows(lotsofdatapoints)arebetterthanjusttwodatapoints.Forexample,twopercentages:25and75areinthemselvesnotveryinterestinganditwouldbehardtopulloffaninterestingvisualizationbasedonjustthosetwonumbers.
15 Do not screen type
Everyfontisawonderfulandbeautifuluniverseuntoitself.Dowereallyneedtotinkerwithwhatisalreadyaverysophisticatedsignsystem?Donotreverse,screen(maketints),border,condenseorexpandtype.Donotitalicizetypebypressingthe“oblique”button.Useafontthatalreadyhasawiderangeofweights.Traditionalold-styleitalicfontsarebesttosavespaceifneeded,astheyarenaturallycondensedandweredesignedforthispurpose.Donotletyourtextlinesrunlongerthantwo-and-a-halftimesthealphabet–about60characters.Breakupthebigtextboxesintotwoormorecolumnswhenevernecessarysothatyourmeasure(boxwidth)is“measured”andcorrect.Donotjustifytextifpossible,useflushleft/raggedright(FL/RR).
infodesignhandbook2013duplexprintingbooklet2UPfrom3.6875x5.75.indd4 8/11/1312:40PM
14 You can use small type
Youcanusesmalltypeinabigposter.Useasmanysizesasneeded.Arangefrom16-18ptto24ptisthebestsizerangeformosttextonaposter,excludingthemaintitleandpossiblythesubtitle,withevensmallersizesforcaptionsandlabels.Forshorttexts,use24pt.Sometimes30ptforlargertextcanbeused.Ingeneral,imaginethatyou’restanding20to30inchesfromtheposter.Atthisdistance,youshouldbeabletoreadmosttextelementsinthelayout.
H. PA
CH
ECO
03 Do not draw graphs by hand
Donottakeanumericaltableorspreadsheetandthenrendertheshapes(thebars,thelines)byhand,evenifyou’reusingIllustrator.Rather,takethedatasetandprocessitthroughadatavisualizationprogram,suchasR,Excel,orother.ThenbringthefileintoIllustratortocleanupandfine-tunelineweights,typography,color,etc.
infodesignhandbook2013duplexprintingbooklet2UPfrom3.6875x5.75.indd5 8/11/1312:40PM
04 Do not enlarge numbers
Donotturndatapointsintostand-aloneenlargednumberswithapercentagesignnexttothemtomakethemlookimportant.Fillingupyourvisualizationwithsuch“visuals”isnotanybetter,andmightinfactbeworse,thanjusthavingplaintext,withno“visualizations”atall.AninfographicisnotaPowerPointtemplate.Thebestthingtodoistocombinewordsandimagestogether.
13 Avoid meaningless concept maps
Avoidmeaninglessconceptmapsandnetworkgraphs.Forasimplereason:theyincludeonthepagetoomanyitemsandabstractconceptsatonce.Ourworkingmemory(short-termmemory)allowsustoholdinmemoryonlyafewitems(4-7)foraveryshorttime(2-4seconds)beforewehavetomoveon.Conceptmapslookverycoolbuttheyarealsoveryuninformativeandlittleinformationisretainedfromtheminourlong-termmemory.Generally,thethingoneremembersfromthemistheirvaguevisualform–theshapeofthegraph–ratherthanthemoreimportantsubjectmatter.
N. M
ITCH
ELL
infodesignhandbook2013duplexprintingbooklet2UPfrom3.6875x5.75.indd6 8/11/1312:40PM
12 Equally space time intervals in timelines
Keepthespacingequal(forequalperiodsoftime)evenifthatresultsinbiginformationgapswithincertainperiodsoftime.Gapsareasmeaningfulasperiodsofconcentratedactivity.Whendataisconcentratedwithinafewyears,usetypographyandothermeanstomakeeverythingreadablewhilekeepingthetemporalspacingevenandcorrect.
J. CH
U
05 Use words, not just images
Usesentences:subject,verb,object.Closeyourclauses.Setupanintroductionandfollowthroughwithvisualizations.Useatitle,asubtitle,anintroduction,maintextifneeded,labels,captions,credits(forpictures)call-outs,footnotes,sources(fordatasets),andasignature(colophon).Thisiscalled“theannotationlayer”.Plus,youcanincludenumericaltables,ifneededandappropriate,withinthevisualization.
THE N
EW YO
RK
TIMES
infodesignhandbook2013duplexprintingbooklet2UPfrom3.6875x5.75.indd7 8/11/1312:40PM
06 Use small multiples
Contentisking.Onesingleblown-upgraphicisnotsogood,especiallyifit’sjustshowingveryfewdatapoints.Don’tbestingy.Forexample,apiechartshowing25and75percentandfillingupawholeposterisnotsogood.It’smuchbettertohaveahighnumberofelementsevenifthey’resmall,likeinageographicmap.Twentylittlepiesarebetterthanonegiantpie.Tenlittlelinegraphsarebetterthanasinglegiantlinegraph.
THE N
EW YO
RK
TIMES
11 Sort by value, not category
Sortbyperformance(value),notalphabetically.Whenpartoftheinformationiscategoricalbutincludesvaluesforeachcategory,donotsortthecategoriesalphabetically.Instead,sortbythevaluesforeachofthosecategories.Forexampleifthecategoriesareproductsorstatesandeachisavalue,sortbythevalue,notbythealphabeticalnamesofthestatesorthenamesoftheproducts.
infodesignhandbook2013duplexprintingbooklet2UPfrom3.6875x5.75.indd8 8/11/1312:40PM
10 Do not use colors (to be memorized)
Donotusecolorsifthereaderhastomemorizethem.Donotusecolorsifyouhavetohavealegendforeverysinglecolorinordertounderstandthegraphic.Ifnolegendisrequired,thenlittlethinkingisneededinordertoperceivethegraphic.Toomanycolorsinthegraphtakeahugetollontheattentioncapacityofthereader.Onecannotrememberallthosecolorsbecausewecanonlyrememberasmallsetofthingsatonce:five-seven.Also,colorsdonothaveanintrinsicorder,thereforetheyshouldnotbeusedtosortthings,unlessyouusevalueaswell:darkercolorformore,lightercolorforless,bothbeingfromthesamehueortwodiverginghuesmaximum.
07 Do not bungle the meaning
Donotbunglethemeaningofyourvisualization.Saywhatyoumeananddonotconfusethereader,startingwithyouropeningtitleandsubtitle.Thisappliestochoiceofwordsaswellaspictures.Forexample,ifthetopicis“Tuitionfeeincreases”donotsay:“FeehikesonMountEverest”;sayinstead:“Feeincreasesreachnewhigh”.Ifthetopicis“BlackFriday(shopping)”,donotsay:“Productscheapasablacksheep”;sayinstead:“BlackFridaykeepsmoregreeninyourwallet”.Ifthetopicis“Christmasshopping”,donotsay:“ChristmasshopperspraytoGodforbiggerdiscounts”;sayinstead:“ConsumerismandreligionmixintraditionalChristmasholiday”.Donotplaylooselywithironyandpuns,anddon’tmix-upyourmetaphors.
SFS
U / D
AI A
IGA
CH
AP
TER
infodesignhandbook2013duplexprintingbooklet2UPfrom3.6875x5.75.indd9 8/11/1312:40PM
08 Do not create op-art
Donotmakeop-art(opticalart)effectsbyusingboldcondensedsans-seriffontswherethestrokesarethesamewidthasthecountersinthefontandalsothewidthofthespacingbetweentheletters.Thiscreatesaveryannoying,vibratingcheckerboardeffect.Donotusesolidbackgrounds,boxes,thickborders,orarbitraryboldtype.Ifyouareusingsolidbackgroundsthroughout,invertthewholeimagetoseeifit’sbetterwiththeoppositevalues.OnaMac,usecontrol-option-command-8toinstantlyinvertthecolorsofyourscreenonthecomputer.Seeifitwouldbebettertheotherwayaround(blacktypeonwhitebackground).Ifnothingisgainedbythesolidfills,thengetridofthem.
D. M
AR
TINEZ
09 Do not use little dots for numbers
Donotuselittledotsforpercentages.Donotuselittlepeopleforquantities.Donotvisualizequantitiesbytheendlessrepetitionofsingleunitslikelittledotsorlittlesquares.Wedon’tusepebblestocountanymore,andwehaveinventedatoolcalled“placevalue”.It’sbettertowriteoutthenumberortovisualizeitusingasinglesolidarea,notmanytinyareasinlittlerows.Donotuselittlepeopleasunitstoshowquantities,evenifthequantitiesrepresentpeople.Thinkofthosepoorlittleguyswhoselimbsgetmutilatedwhenyouhavetorepresentafraction:arms,legs,evenheadsgetcutoffwithoutmercy!
T. BO
DD
YJ. LU
THER
infodesignhandbook2013duplexprintingbooklet2UPfrom3.6875x5.75.indd10 8/11/1312:40PM
