I N T R O TO DATA V I S UA L I Z AT I O N Andrew Heiss, PhD - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

I N T R O TO DATA V I S UA L I Z AT I O N

Andrew Heiss, PhD Brigham Young University September 19, 2018 @andrewheiss

P L A N F O R T O D A Y Why visualize data? Types of visualizations Aesthetics and design How do I do all this?

W H Y V I S U A L I Z E DATA ?

P R O V I N G T R U T H

Theories are only stories until you have data.

A L L W E N E E D I S R A W D A T A

No correlation!

J K L O L

D A T A I S N O T E N O U G H

Theories are only stories until you have data. Data alone cannot tell stories or prove theories.

H U M A N S L O V E P A T T E R N S

W H Y V I S U A L I Z E D A T A ? Graphs let us see patterns in our data Sometimes graphs alone are sufficient for telling a story and drawing inference from data

P L O T S > R A W T A B L E S

P L O T S > R A W T A B L E S

P L O T S > R A W T A B L E S

P L O T S > R A W T A B L E S

P L O T S > R A W T A B L E S

!

T H I S I S D I F F I C U LT !

Incompetence Deceit Complexity

W H AT M A K E S A G O O D V I S UA L I Z AT I O N ?

T H E W A R O F 1 8 1 2

T H E W A R O F 1 8 1 2

• 35
• 30
• 25
• 20
• 15
• 10
• 5

October 1 November 1 December 1 ºC

T H E W A R O F 1 8 1 2

Napoleon’s Grande Armée

Died Survived

C H A R A C T E R I S T I C S O F G R A P H I C A L E X C E L L E N C E

• 1. “... the well-designed presentation of interesting

data—a matter of substance, statistics, and design.”

• 2. Complex ideas communicated with

clarity, precision, and efficiency.

• 3. That which gives the viewer the greatest

number of ideas in the shortest time with the least ink in the smallest space.

• 4. Nearly always multivariate.
• 5. Requires telling the truth about the data.

M O S T I D E A S , S H O R T E S T T I M E , L E A S T I N K , S M A L L E S T S P A C E

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T Y P E S O F V I S U A L I Z AT I O N S

T W O G E N E R A L T Y P E S

Exploratory

Academic-ish Quick scatterplots, histograms, other charts to help understand your data

Explanatory

Publishable Consumable by the general public; Vox, NYT, Washington Post, FiveThirtyEight, etc.

E X P L O R A T O R Y D A T A A N A LY S I S

Find analytical insight in data (even causal inference !)

E X P L A N A T O R Y D A T A A N A LY S I S

Annotate and tell a story

W H I C H C H A R T T Y P E D O I U S E ?

A E S T H E T I C S A N D D E S I G N

F O U R C O R E D E S I G N P R I N C I P L E S

Contrast Repetition Alignment Proximity

C O N T R A S T Don’t be a wimp. “If two items are not exactly the same, make them different. Really different.”

T Y P O G R A P H I C C O N T R A S T

Serif Sans Serif Slab Serif Script Decorative Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet Lo Lorem em ip ipsu sum do dolor s r sit am amet et

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet

Lor

• rem ip

ipsu sum dol

• lor
• r s

sit ame amet

Lo Lorem ip ipsu sum do dolor r sit sit am amet

C O L O R C O N T R A S T

https://color.adobe.com/ http://colorbrewer2.org/ viridis Scientific Colour-Maps https://github.com/thomasp85/scico

R E P E T I T I O N “Repeat some aspect

• f the design throughout

the entire piece.”

A L I G N M E N T “Every item should have a visual connection with something else on the page.”

P R O X I M I T Y “Group related items together.”

Contrast Repetition Alignment Proximity

C R A P

C R A P A N D D A T A V I Z

H O W D O I D O A L L T H I S ?

S O F T W A R E

Barrier to entry (amount of coding required) Flexibility and power

I N T R O TO DATA V I S UA L I Z AT I O N

Andrew Heiss, PhD Brigham Young University September 19, 2018 @andrewheiss