Fundamentals of Data Visualization

Chapter 24. Use Larger Axis Labels

If you take away only one single lesson from this book, make it this one: pay attention to your axis labels, axis tick labels, and other assorted plot annotations. Chances are they are too small. In my experience, nearly all graphing software and plot libraries have poor defaults. If you use the default values, you’re almost certainly making a poor choice.

For example, consider Figure 24-1. I see figures like this all the time. The axis labels, axis tick labels, and legend labels are all incredibly small. We can barely see them, and we may have to zoom into the page to read the annotations in the legend.

A somewhat better version of this figure is shown as Figure 24-2. I think the fonts are still too small, and that’s why I have labeled the figure as ugly. However, we are moving in the right direction. This figure might be passable under some circumstances. My main criticism here is not so much that the labels aren’t legible as that the figure is not balanced; the text elements are too small compared to the rest of the figure.

Figure 24-1. Percent body fat versus height in professional male Australian athletes. (Each point represents one athlete.) This figure suffers from the common affliction that the text elements are way too small and are barely legible. Data source: [Telford and Cunningham 1991].

Figure 24-2. Percent body fat versus height ...