EOW02: Survey Answers

Examples of correct answers to this week’s survey

Example Answers to The Questions

This week we did the two numbers design exercise, how do the motivations for visualization show up even in this trivial example?

For different specific purposes, we could still design various visualization to display even a supper small data set, making the reader easier to understand the meaning of the data. For example, if those two numbers are scores of two students and comparing the two score is what we want to highlight to the reader, then bar-chart-like visualizations are better to make this.

What is a piece of advice (about critique) that you took away from the readings on critique?

Could really be anything, so long as it showed some thoguht and demosntrated you did the readings.

Pick two “axes” of Cairo’s “visualization wheel”

Axis 1: Functionality-Decoration

The range of options for creating a visual based on the functionality-decoration axel is determined by how much imagery you want included that does not help with providing data for the reader to view or understand. This axis makes you consider not only your purpose, but your audience in that there is a trade off between being eye catching and entertaining (high decoration) and displaying information/data in a clear and accesible way - generally speaking, the more decoration, the less functional. For instance, academic paper readers generally don’t need to be drawn in by decoration and would like you to prioritize the facts, but if your visualization needs broader appeal or needs to catch people’s eyes, more decoration may be in order.

Axis 2: Originality-Familiarity

The range of options for creating a visual based on the originality-familiarity axel is determined by how common the types of graphs one utilizes to display the data are to the average reader. For example on one end of the spectrum if the visualization designer only users very common graphs (bar, line, etc.) then they are leaning towards a visualization on the familiarity side of the axel. But, as the reading showed, if the visualization designer used a stream graph to display data that would be considered a more original visualization. I had previously never seen or heard of a stream graph so that shows how the originality could result in the reader needing to figure out what is going on with the graph before being able to understand the data being presented, so you need to balance between the desire to be familiar and the desire to display your data well/effectively accomplish your task (assuming it can be done so better in a more original format).