Understing the Intuition behind Charts 🎨
Understing the Intuition behind Charts 🎨
DataBites #7
Hey you all!
It’s Josep here, one more week! 👋🏻
Now that it's August, summer has officially begun! 🔥 I hope those of you on vacation are having an amazing time, and for those still working, I hope your vacations are just around the corner!
I have some exciting news to share about the coming weeks...
On August 14th, I'll be traveling through North America for two weeks, followed by a month in Japan throughout September. During this time, I'll continue posting my DataBites issues as usual, but I might be a bit less active on social networks.
I promise to return full of energy, but right now, I'm incredibly excited about this travel opportunity!
The most important news of the week?
I've become a digital advocate for Pieces, a fantastic product (completely free) that's helping me optimize my coding workflow. Over the next few weeks, I'll be sharing more details about it.
And what else is on the horizon?
I recently had my first collaboration with
(and hopefully many more to come) to create a list of resources for getting started with ML. It was a success, and if you missed it, you can check it out below 👇🏻
Now that we’ve caught up on life updates, let's dive into the important stuff 👨🏻💻.
Building on my previous DataBites issue, today I want to explore the intuition behind Data Visualization and charts.
Why does this matter?
We've already recognized the importance of DataViz, but many people still don't understand why visual elements are more intuitive than raw numbers.
Many technical experts often overlook how profoundly our understanding of the world is shaped by the workings of our brains.
Today, let's reconnect with our human side and explore why some charts resonate more intuitively with us than others 💥
Breaking DataViz to Its Basics
There are two main theories behind the intuitiveness of charts - and a final technique that can be quite useful to know! 😉
1. Gestalt Theory
People who work with technology sometimes forget about the human side of things. The Gestalt Principles are rules from psychology that explain precisely this: How our brain sees patterns.
Some of these rules help us understand why we group things that look alike or notice things that stand out.
#1 Similarity
Gestalt similarity means our brain groups things that look alike. This can be because of their position, shape, color, or size.
This is extensively used in heat maps or scatter plots.
#2 Closure
Objects inside a border-like a line or a shared color-look as they belong together. This makes them stand out from other things we see.
We often use borders or colors in tables and graphs to group data.
#3 Continuity
When individual elements are connected, our eyes think they belong together. Even if they look different, the line makes us see them as a group. This is extensively used in line charts.
#4 Proximity
We think things are in the same group if they are close to each other. To show things belong together, put them close. Using a little space can help separate different groups. This is commonly used in scattering plots or node-link diagrams.
So the Gestalt principles and their interactions are important to consider when making visualizations.
2. The Principle of Proportional Ink
The second rule involves the Principle of Proportional Ink. In many different visualization scenarios, we represent data values by the extent of a graphical element.
It is common practice to use the word ink to refer to any part of a visualization that deviates from the background color. This includes lines, bars, points, shared areas, and text.
For example, in a bar plot, we draw bars that begin at 0 and end at the data value they represent. In this case, the data value is not only encoded in the endpoint of the bar but also in the height or length of the bar.
If we drew a bar that started at a different value than 0, then the length of the bar and the bar endpoint would convey contradicting information.
In all these cases, we need to make sure that there is no inconsistency. This concept has been termed the principle of proportional ink by Bergstrom and West.
“When a shaded region is used to represent a numerical value, the area of that shaded region should be directly proportional to the corresponding value.”
Violations of this principle are quite common when trying to manipulate data, in particular in the popular press and in the world of finance.
Similar issues will happen whenever we use graphical elements such as rectangles, shaded areas of arbitrary shape, or any other elements that have a defined visual extent that can be either consistent or inconsistent with the data value shown.
3. The Pop-Out effect
The pop-out effect stands out as a key technique for highlighting specific data points amidst a sea of information.
This visual phenomenon ensures that certain elements in a dataset instantly grab the observer's attention due to their distinctive features, such as color, shape, or size.
By leveraging this effect, data analysts can draw focus to unusual data behaviors or important outliers that might otherwise be overlooked in a complex visual.
To effectively implement the pop-out effect in your charts:
Use muted colors to represent general trends.
Select a vibrant, contrasting hue for the key data you want to emphasize.
This approach not only enhances the visual appeal of your charts but also aids in quicker data interpretation and decision-making processes.
Whether in a business presentation or an academic report, mastering the pop-out effect can significantly boost the communicative power of your visual data representations.
As data lovers, it’s our art, our language, and our bridge to the whole world.
So next time you craft a chart, remember…
You're not just a data professional, You're a storyteller!
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Great article Josep ! If anyone can write on visualization its you with so much experience in creating clean and simple visuals.
Where are you traveling to North America btw ? :)
This was great Josep! I love anything related to UX and data visualisation so this one hit the spot.
Thank you for the shoutout and enjoy your travels. I’m looking forward to more articles.