Visualization Analysis and Design

Chapter 1

What’s Vis, and Why Do It?

1.1 The Big Picture

This book is built around the following definition of visualization—vis, for short:

Computer-based visualization systems provide visual representations of datasets designed to help people carry out tasks more effectively.

Visualization is suitable when there is a need to augment human capabilities rather than replace people with computational decision-making methods. The design space of possible vis idioms is huge, and includes the considerations of both how to create and how to interact with visual representations. Vis design is full of trade-offs, and most possibilities in the design space are ineffective for a particular task, so validating the effectiveness of a design is both necessary ...