Visual Display of Quantitative Information 1

Visual Display of Quantitative Information

Neville Churcher(Thanks to Andy Cockburn)

Department of Computer Science & Software EngineeringUniversity of Canterbury

2013

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Why?

P Explore dataP Reveal information in data (distribution, relationships, . . .P Make a pointP Illustrate an ideaP Give an exampleP Condense informationP Provide interestP . . .4 > 1 of the above

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Considerations

P Big picture (focus + context)P SizeP LocationP Title, captionP UncertaintiesP OriginP ScaleP OutliersP LabelsP Significant figuresP Artifacts (avoid bitmaps, . . . )P Avoid misleading

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Example

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Example

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Example

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Example

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Example

Foo256324

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Tables

P Good for showing exact (numeric) valuesP Multiple local comparisons practicableP Supplement text explanationP Not so good for trendsP Left-justify textP Right-justify numbers (align decimal points)P Significant figures

P Avoid data prisons (too many grid bars)P Unnecessary for few data values—minimum viable size?

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Example

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For further ideas . . .

P Books by Tufte e.g. The Visual Display of QuantitativeInformation

P http://www.datavis.ca/gallery

P http://www.informationisbeautiful.net

P http://memebase.cheezburger.com/graphjam

P COSC415P . . .

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Summary