Designing Data Visualizations

Preface

The path from journeyman to master is long. In the case of data visualization, the path has been well marked by many accomplished designers and cognitive scientists who have been doing great work for decades. We gladly follow in their footsteps, and we hope you will, too.

In these pages, however, our goal is not so much to take you to the summit as to start you down the path—and that the path is quite rewarding to travel. Our goal is to give you confidence as you begin your journey.

Many statisticians and practitioners with excellent coding and data munging skills are nevertheless stuck in a rut of common formats and default settings, which lead to mundane, suboptimal visualizations. But the domain of hand-crafted, fine-tuned, noteworthy visualizations is not limited to “creative” types; it is accessible with a bit of guidance.

The truth is, there is plenty of room for artistry and creativity in data visualization. But success is built upon a linear process that encodes information for visual transmission and subsequent decoding by wetware—the reader’s brain. One aim in writing this book is to introduce you to this process, including some basic concepts and best practices, so that your message may be transmitted with minimal interference.

It is a process. And design is something you’re probably already doing, whether you’re designing applications, frameworks, graphics, or something else. Design is simply a process of organized thinking, planning, and executing. You are making ...