Visual Analytics Fundamentals: Creating Compelling Data Narratives with Tableau

Chapter 7

Design Tips for Curating Visual Analytics

Now that we’ve explored how to build fundamental data visualizations to communicate insights, this chapter dives into human cognition and visual perception to frame how pre-attentive attributes such as size, color, shape, and position affect the usability and efficacy of visual analytics. We will explore best practices for how design elements can be employed to direct an audience’s attention and create a visual hierarchy of components to communicate effectively.

It’s been said—by Tableau, actually—that data visualization is one of the most significant technologies of the 21st century. Of course, the act of visually representing data is not limited to the 21st century. Chapter 2 presented Minard’s ...